posted 11-14-2016 04:12 AM               

Starting with Apollo 13, though, different types of mission emblem cachet covers were printed. But not just by NASA Exchange, but also, by space souvenir companies, aerospace contractor teams, philatelic firms (global as well), and stamp clubs in Florida and Texas.

In trying to acquire a crew-signed Apollo emblem cachet cover series, it would be easier to obtain those crews from the later Apollo flights on launch day insignia or crew patch covers, but would be difficult to acquire from Apollos 8-12 as a collection series.

As far as the autographs go, it might be a little bit difficult in trying to acquire an Apollo 13 insignia cover signed by Swigert with Lovell and Haise all together, but really difficult in locating all 4 signatures together with Mattingly included.

But of course, most of the earlier Apollo signed insignia covers from 8-11, on the average, are not that common with genuine signatures. The hardest would be Apollos 8, 11, and 10 in that order, from my opinion.

posted 11-14-2016 10:52 AM               

Besides the difficulty of just finding some of these available, the prices of several would also be a problem, especially with Apollos 8, 11 and 13. It's especially rare to even see Apollo 8 and 11 mission emblem crew signed covers, much less available.

An easier and likely to be more successful goal, would be to concentrate on finding covers with authentic crew autographs on any type cover, such as commercial cacheted covers, NASA/KSC official cacheted covers and Prime Recovery Ship covers, all of which mostly exist in sufficient numbers.

posted 11-14-2016 03:49 PM               

The sticker does feature Apollo 7's crew insignia, but unfortunately, it's not a color reproduction (printed in dark blue with white lettering). The insignia portion of the sticker, though, is attached in the center of a white-square panel frame and it might be best--in some instances--to cut the insignia portion away from its attached background.

What I have done several times was to purchase a decal sheet that contains a nice individually-cut Apollo 7 crew emblem, printed in full official colors.

posted 11-14-2016 06:57 PM               

Thank you for clarifying the circumstances with Apollo 7, I had some mixed information about their covers and I too figured Apollos 8, 11, and 13 would be the more expensive ones to find. But the primary reason I thought I might aspire to this project was because I have a really nice set of covers for all the unmanned missions, then I acquired a really nice Swigert owned/signed A13 insignia cover and added Lovell and Haise last year (No Mattingly, but that's ok with me for now). I figured I was a third of the way through the tough ones and a complete set of Apollo covers with the manned covers crew signed would make ambitious but not impossible goal.

posted 11-14-2016 07:39 PM               

I think you may have seen my auctioned-off Apollo 9 insignia cover that had been crew signed (was it from RR Auctions last month)? It had been signed for me during the early 1970's when I was a high school student, however, if I recall it wasn't cancelled on launch day at KSC, but it was postmarked a day after the AS-504 liftoff.

posted 11-15-2016 09:47 AM               

As shown here, the official Apollo 7 NASA/KSC decal/label was rectangular in shape and fairly large and covered over a third of the cover surface.

Many of these labels were trimmed around the edges of the insignia, as the label on the Apollo 7 crew signed cover was, or affixed horizontally, or vertically as the other cover shows. It's recorded that 10,760 of these Apollo 7 labels were provided.