posted 09-22-2024 09:54 AM               

Apollo 15 PRS Insurance-type Cover

I acquired this very special and unusual Apollo 15 USS Okinawa Prime Recovery Ship cover from Novaspace Galleries in a sale of Jim McDivitt's space material. It is referred to as an "Insurance-type Cover" in the Certificate of Authenticity. It is a very unusual family-owned insurance-type cover by being onboard and canceled on a Prime Recovery Ship for an Apollo recovery.

This is Novaspace's Certificate of Authenticity, along with a notation by Jim McDivitt, verifying that the cover was in his collection and came from a crew member's family.

Being family-owned it would have some claim to being an actual insurance cover, but technically would have to be canceled in Houston and have been with the family during the mission to qualify, plus any documentation from the family would also be required.

One scenario is that the cover was with the family at the time of launch and then flown to the Okinawa for the recovery, along with 4,000 Decade of Achievement stamps for mainly to use on the Apollo 15 flown moon covers.

As it is, it may possibly be unique and a very special and desirable Apollo 15 PRS cover, as it was onboard the USS Okinawa and canceled with a pair of the Decade of Achievement stamps that were from the batch that was used on the infamous Apollo 15 covers flown to the moon.

Unfortunately, I don't remember when I obtained this special cover nor what I paid for it.

posted 10-03-2024 06:35 AM               

Perhaps the Apollo 15 crew, along with Bishop himself on a separate occasion(s), provided such covers when at KSC during later crew training and quarantine activities.

But in order to receive an Apollo 15 USS Okinawa ship-board postal cancel using the newly released USPS twin rover and lunar model postage stamps, it seems more likely that once the cover(s) had been crew signed in Florida, Bishop would have the interest since he was a cover collector, time frame, and opportunity in making special arrangements for his pre-launch crew signed cachet cover(s) to be on the ship at sea for postage application. The USS Okinawa left Hawaii for its at-sea recovery station on the same day of launch (July 26, 1971), a week before the twin space stamps were first released on August 2 with a 5-day later splashdown on August 7 in the Pacific.