posted 06-30-2025 06:54 AM               

Goldcraft was earlier, and Sarzin has his fans. Orbit, Celestial, Sokolsky and others are highly collectible, but in my humble opinion SpaceCraft outshines all of them.

Their printed cachets are almost instantly recognisable by style alone, but it helps that their logo is found on the majority of covers (and the stuffer cards are an added bonus to authenticity!).

I have recently bought many of the very early SpaceCraft covers from a single source and noticed that one in particular - Ranger 1 - does not have the usual SpaceCraft logo on the printed cachet (see SCOTW #714 for an image). As far as I knew, that, and the single colour Man In Space covers for the MR-1a, Ham, Shepard and Grissom launches, were the only SpaceCraft cachets devoid of the SpaceCraft logo.

But the dealer I bought the SpaceCraft covers from also had this for sale - a printed cacheted cover for the launch of Explorer 10.

The style and artwork and text scream Swanson and Fitzpatrick at me. Although it has no SpaceCraft logo I strongly suspect this is a SpaceCraft cover. Explorer 10 is catalogued as #1 on page C1 in the excellent Charles Vukotich's "SpaceCraft Covers: A Monograph and Catalog", but unfortunately no accompanying illustration goes with it.