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  Controversy behind Soyuz TM-21 cover

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Author Topic:   Controversy behind Soyuz TM-21 cover
micropooz
Member

Posts: 1562
From: Washington, DC, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 11-24-2020 04:57 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for micropooz   Click Here to Email micropooz     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I recently found this cover stowed deeply in my miscellaneous box, and I am trying to remember the controversy that surrounded it.

I bought it from Rand Philatelic right around the time of the first Shuttle-Mir flight. It is a Baikonur postmarked cover for the launch of Soyuz TM-21 carrying Vladimir Dezhurov, Gennady Strekalov and Norm Thagard (the ascent crew) to Mir. And it was autographed by all three. I had the opportunity to add Nikolai Budarin's (descent crew) autograph (just left of Thagard) later.

Some time after that I remember that these covers came into question in the community, but I cannot remember why. So it got relegated to my miscellaneous box instead of my ASTP album (where it had served as an appropriate conclusion to the cooperation initiated on ASTP).

Does anyone remember the issue with these covers? If so, please shout!

Ken Havekotte
Member

Posts: 3117
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 11-24-2020 05:26 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ken Havekotte   Click Here to Email Ken Havekotte     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Just briefly, I think this is one of the bogus Russian signed space covers that were done in a small series of similar covers around the time of STS-71 involving Thagard and all the crew autographs you see on the cover, and even more signatures being forged. There are at least three to five other cover issues that fall into this category as not being genuine based on at least three or more concerns.

Such "concerns" first came to my attention, along with another long-time space cover dealer, that something had to be amidst. My firm had been offered the signed cover issues by a foreign dealer not too well-known to us. Shortly afterwards, I started to suspect some of the U.S. astronaut autograph traits as being rather suspicious.

The European dealer with me also checked out some of the background of the offered Russian Soyuz covers along with a couple of the Russian cosmonaut signatures that were included. One of the "signing" cosmonauts that was contacted reported that he never signed any the covers referred to in question at the time.

micropooz
Member

Posts: 1562
From: Washington, DC, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 11-24-2020 05:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for micropooz   Click Here to Email micropooz     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Ah, thanks Ken! That sounds familiar now...

cosmos-walter
Member

Posts: 704
From: Salzburg, Austria
Registered: Jun 2003

posted 11-25-2020 05:11 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cosmos-walter   Click Here to Email cosmos-walter     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
All signatures and postmarks are faked. As I remember, a few thousand such covers were produced. Space mail covers with similarily faked signatures and faked on-board cancellations came from the same source.

Ken Havekotte
Member

Posts: 3117
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 11-25-2020 06:41 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ken Havekotte   Click Here to Email Ken Havekotte     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
That's correct, Walter, as you know, too. The other "three to five cover issue concerns" I had referred to were indeed, as you said, the fake cancels and postal markings used that were not legitimate. Only the postage stamps were real.

micropooz
Member

Posts: 1562
From: Washington, DC, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 11-25-2020 04:53 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for micropooz   Click Here to Email micropooz     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks to both of you Ken and Walter. Coming from experts like you two, that information is rock solid.

Suffice it to say that this cover now "sleeps with the fishes" (to lovingly rip off a line from The Godfather).

yeknom-ecaps
Member

Posts: 694
From: Northville MI USA
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 11-26-2020 08:06 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for yeknom-ecaps   Click Here to Email yeknom-ecaps     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Walter/Juergen/Ken - can you post images of the other suspect covers so we know what to be on the look-out for? Thanks.

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