Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 3763
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 01-20-2024 02:07 PM
   
Note the below displayed space covers that all share something in common you don't normally see. Here are more than two dozen different U.S. cachet space covers, but what's different in their cachet designs, is that they all have space-related decal stickers applied. Some have exclusive stickers as their only cachet used while others may have a combination of decals, rubber stamps, and printed cachets. As you can see decals can be quite colorful and attractive when used as full cachet designs or even in helping to dress-up a cover when combined by other cachet features. Included are a variety of cover issues from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Viking, Shuttle, and satellite programs. Most all of the stickers are of vintage era with many by NASA and aerospace companies, along with a few done as personal space event mementoes. Some of the earlier decals, just by themselves, are hard-to-find and sought out by sticker collectors and other space enthusiasts. Take for instance the above Gemini 5 decal sticker on a GT-5 launch cover from the Cape. The "8 days in space" sticker was designed and produced by the Kellogg Company. It's part of a Kellogg series of NASA's manned spaceflights commemorating the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions of the 1960's. The famous breakfast cereal corn flakes, invented by the Kellogg brothers, offered one of 20 different available space mission stickers "Free Inside" each of their cereal boxes in 1969.  Others from Apollo that are not seen that often on covers would be the Apollo 8 launch cover that bears a seldom seen North American Rockwell "First Manned Saturn V" red printed sticker label. Another is for the Boeing Company's "Saturn V Apollo Team" on an Apollo 4 (AS-501) launch day cover and a rare "We Photograph with Hasselblad ... The Camera that took the Pictures of the Moon" 2-color decal on an Apollo 15 decade of space achievement first day cover. Some of the cover postal cancellations actual "touch" a small portion of the sticker, which is my preference in some instances, to help document that the sticker was indeed available and used at the time the space cover event took place. One other, such as John Glenn's first orbital spaceflight in 1962, contains a later-printed Friendship 7 mission emblem decal that fits quite nicely as a full cachet cover design. Any other "decal cachet covers" out there? I must have a couple hundred more from so many shuttle flights, space projects and programs throughout the last five decades. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 51725
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 01-20-2024 02:16 PM
Very nice collection, Ken, and a rare example of a topic that I can add to...My first (and to date, only) time creating my cover was done for the InSight landing when I used a decal obtained from JPL for the cachet. I thought it came out nicely, though as mentioned when I first posted about this, for some reason, the USPS failed to provide the requested pictorial postmark, which would have made this cover even better (at least in my own mind).  |
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