posted 07-30-2020 10:40 AM               

These Mitchell Apollo 14 covers seem to hold a separate place in the collecting community.

Established guidelines for what is and is not an "insurance cover" include:

1. The envelope is one of the covers that were used for insurance covers for that mission.

2. The cover was signed by the entire crew before the mission and placed in safekeeping with someone who would have the covers cancelled on the launch date or the moon landing date with the intent that they should be used as a form of life insurance for the crew.

3. Preferably the cover would be annotated on the reverse by a crew member that the cover is from his personal collection. While this is not always possible (many Apollo insurance covers made it to the marketplace long before concerns about provenance were prevalent), it is a desirable trait.

The Peachstate certificate that accompanies these covers makes clear that Mitchell did not sign the covers before the mission — some of the covers were left unsigned and cancelled with the insurance covers, and he signed his blank covers later after the mission was completed.

Is it possible (likely?) that Ed Mitchell, like Gene Cernan in the case of the Apollo 17 anniversary covers, was not aware of the specific terminology involved in the collector community regarding insurance covers? I think that is the most likely explanation.

The Apollo 17 anniversary cover controversy happened when David Frohman (David Ball was involved as well, but I am unsure of his role) convinced Gene Cernan to authenticate his anniversary covers as "insurance covers" (Cernan's integrity was never in question; Frohman took advantage of the fact that Cernan did not realize what the term "insurance cover" meant to a collector, and he urged him to accept the wording placed on the covers and on the certificates that accompanied them). See the third page of the thread linked in this paragraph for Cernan's response to the controversy shortly after the covers were released.

Frohman's earlier involvement with the Mitchell "insurance covers" looks to me like a similar situation. Ultimately, the Mitchell covers were not signed before the mission. That makes them nice signed collectibles, but I think it is pretty safe to say that they should never have been presented by Frohman as insurance covers.

To me, the big question is: How will the Mitchell covers (and the Apollo 17 anniversary covers) be viewed in the future? We have already seen the Apollo 17 anniversary covers, accompanied by the manufactured "insurance cover" provenance, being treated in the marketplace with virtually the same reverence as actual insurance covers (I saw one in a recent auction that sold for around $2,500). It is unlikely that the whole story of those manufactured Apollo 17 "insurance covers" will accompany the covers themselves, so the fiction will likely be accepted as fact by future collectors.

Here is an earlier thread regarding Peachstate Historical Consulting, Frohman's company. The history is less than stellar.

One last point from a blog post from an author who spent some time writing at Frohman's home, which he renovated and named "Fountainebleu." I will let Frohman's words speak for himself:

To fully explain what it was like he told me a story about Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man ever to walk the moon. "Edgar told me before I got there he had a box of junk, and when I left he had an estate," he smiled, as the relevance of his work sunk into my brain.

posted 07-30-2020 11:43 AM               

The depicted Mitchell covers of this topic, owned by Mitchell and his family (of which I have no problem with), might be considered as an "intended insurance-type," cachet cover, similar to the Cernan MSCSC-original cover batch for the final Apollo lunar flight.

posted 08-01-2020 04:43 AM               

I was under the impression that all of the Al Bishop covers from just before the mission (and as far as I know every documented crew signed Bishop "insurance" cover) had the Apollo 8 postage stamp on them. Why would this cover be different even if unsigned?

I am also not sure of the COA as Edgar Mitchell never signed it. Just because there are several in circulation does that mean that they were authorized or certified by Edgar Mitchell himself?

posted 08-01-2020 07:37 AM               

David Frohman did have a business relationship for a period of time. You can go to his website and see pictures of him with Mitchell. He also had business relationships with Aldrin, Bean, Duke, Cernan, and perhaps others.

The problem I have is with what I call "manufactured provenance," convincing the astronaut that an authentic item in his possession is actually another (more valuable) item. The single signed covers were likely in a box in a closet, mostly forgotten and magically, now they are "insurance covers" complete with authentication from the astronaut himself! The same situation repeated itself with Cernan's Apollo 17 anniversary covers.

On the Mitchell COA, it says that Mitchell signed the covers sometime after the flight. Was it a week after? Was it 26 years later when Frohman arrived at the house? Does it really matter?

posted 08-01-2020 08:33 AM               

Three other Apollo astronauts that I have worked with on cachets had similar Bishop and MSCSC signed and unsigned covers. Some were posted, but not crew signed, while others were in a mint condition. While most of their quantities were more likely used as complete insurance covers, in some cases, not all had been used and were kept by that astronaut and his family, which could be the Mitchell covers referred to here.