Posts: 564
From: Australia
Registered: Jul 2003

Posts: 3861
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001

Posts: 1795
From: Washington, DC, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 09-02-2024 01:31 PM               

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As Ken said, this has identical traits to known Risers. I'd steer clear just based on that.

If you can get hold of an ultraviolet light, shine it on the cover and see if it shows an "H" marking in the lower right corner. If so, then you have one from the batch of the postal inspector's marked covers that were used to indict Riser. Slam dunk identified as a Riser.

Posts: 586
From: Derbyshire UK
Registered: Mar 2023

posted 09-02-2024 02:04 PM               

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Just to stir the mixture a little... if it is a genuine Riser fake, as opposed to a fake fake, if you get my drift, it is probably worth as much as a genuine genuine cover (these days*), especially if it has as much authentication as Dennis suggests you look for. (All of which presupposes you buy it as a known fake, rather than buying it as genuine.) 🙂

* I can tell you this because I bid on a Riser, advertised as such, without knowing then what a Riser was.

Having looked it up, on this very website, and read about Riser Fakes in Cavallaro's excellent "The Race to The Moon" I requested of the very respected vendor that he should annul my bid. He did so with no qualm, but also advised me that I might be making a mistake as known 'genuine' Risers were 'at the top of the market.'

Posts: 3861
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 09-02-2024 04:12 PM               

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Haven't quite heard before that "genuine (fake?) Risers were at the top of the market." Did I hear that correctly?

As for my collecting preferences, I would never pay for a fake Riser, as I would not want to contribute in anyway to a fraudulent market.

What I would do is keep good photostat-copies, of which I have done, mainly for reference and background information resources and studies on such topics.

Posts: 154
From: Kissimmee, FL USA
Registered: Aug 2010

posted 09-02-2024 09:08 PM               

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Yes, this USS Stormes cover is the classic example of a Riser fake cover. The 7 cent embossed airmail envelope is the envelope he primarily used for his fake covers. The red seal attached as a cachet further confirms it to be a Riser fake as he used these often. I would never...and I mean NEVER touch any similar cover commemorating extremely rare launch or recovery covers to add to my collection.

That being said, there is a value to these covers for being part of the philatelic history commemorating the US space program. As Ken said, he keeps photostats of Riser covers for reference. Having the covers themselves, while paying little money for them, can also act as reference material.

Posts: 897
From: Northville MI USA
Registered: Aug 2005

Posts: 847
From: Salzburg, Austria
Registered: Jun 2003

posted 09-03-2024 05:13 AM               

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I am pretty sure, Eberhard Coelle regarded Riser as a reliable source for space covers when he attested this cover back in 1973.

I started collecting space covers during Apollo 11. A few years later I started to collect Mercury and Gemini Launch and PRS covers. In all those years I came across only a single genuine Enos USS Stormes cover with the proper date.

Posts: 3861
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 09-03-2024 09:43 AM               

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Yes, I agree Walter, and for Tom, I was first acquainted with Charles Riser and Eberhard Colle at about the same time frame during the early 1970's. As a high schooler, Riser contacted me after hearing of my space cover interest in some earlier Astrophile and Explorer astrophilately journals and asked if I could be of assistance or help with his servicing of space covers in my area of the Florida Space Coast. The same also with Colle a few short years later.

That was my earlier beginnings in becoming a space cover cancel servicer, but during that first year, I wasn't even driving a car yet.

During our correspondences (we did lots of letters back in those days) Riser would mail me some complimentary recent covers along with some copies of his "signed astronaut" covers. When viewing them, even at this very early stage of my rookie space collecting career, I never did like some of them. I would compare some known genuine autographs, including Wernher von Braun that I would see from other collectors and dealers, that never looked completely authentic to me.

Same with most of the early unsigned rarer space covers he would show me (not to buy though as I had hardly no money at all for this exciting new hobby of mine). But heck, I was only a teenage kid, so what did I know about authenticity, but it was a good learning experience and taught me that even some of our most well-known and veteran space dealers might not always be honest.