posted 11-16-2025 03:07 PM               

Space Cover 832: Robert McCall original cachets

I've been a collector of space covers for over 55 years, and recently began collecting space themed art. There are many artists who created paintings in the 1940s – 1960s with a space theme such as Chesley Bonestell, Jack Collins, Alex Schomberg, Malcolm Smith and Edmund Belarsky, and some of them were used as illustrations in magazines such as Colliers and Life and as covers of Science Fiction 'Pulp' books/magazines. There are also artists who were commissioned to paint space scenes in the 1960s and later to be used as stamps, such as Paul Calle, Chris Calle and Robert McCall.

This Space Cover of the Week topic will feature covers that have original hand drawn/hand painted cachets by Robert McCall.

Robert McCall began his professional career as an artist when, after returning from service in the Army Air Corp during World War II, he moved to New York where he painted illustrations for magazines such as Life, The Saturday Evening Post and Popular Science. His interest in science and technology led him to paint images of the evolving space program and, in 1963, NASA selected him as one of the first artists in it's new Art Program with other famous artists such as Jamie Wyeth and Norman Rockwell.

Along with painting technical accurate images of the evolving space program McCall also enjoyed painting futuristic space scenes. In 1967 director Stanley Kubrick, along with science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, asked McCall to produce promotional art for their new film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and his images of the pinwheel space station and lunar base were used to create posters to advertise the release of the film in 1968.

McCall's work continued to alternate between the current space programs with visions of the future. In 1977, to commemorate 30 years of aircraft testing and operations at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, now the Armstrong Flight Research Center, McCall painted the mural 'The Spirit of Flight Research'. The 10 by 20 foot painting depicts the aircraft flown during the center's first 30 years of operation. Another one of his large murals includes one at the Johnson Space Center titled 'Opening the Space Frontier – The Next Giant Step', which illustrates NASA's human spaceflight programs past, present and future.

In addition to painting large murals he also designed stamps for the United States Postal Service, such as the two 'Decade of Achievement' stamps that were issued during the Apollo 15 mission on Aug. 2, 1971, the Skylab stamp that was issued on May 14, 1974, the two Apollo Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) stamps that were issued on July 15, 1975, the Viking stamp that was issued on July 20, 1978 and other stamps. Examples of First Day Covers with these stamps and original cachets are shown below.

The first cover is a First Day Cover (FDC) for the two Decade of Space Achievement Stamps on August 2, 1971 and has an original hand-painted cachet by McCall. Other than it being an original hand-painted cover I also like that it has a cachet that is associated with the stamps. For example the cachet on this cover shows an Apollo astronaut, Lunar Module and Lunar Rover on the Lunar surface, with the Command/Service Module in Lunar orbit. Although the cachet is different from the stamps it shows an Apollo astronaut on the Moon, and the stamps commemorate an Apollo Lunar mission.

Another example of an original McCall cachet on a Decade of Achievement Stamps FDC is show below. Like the first cover this one is hand painted but unlike the first one the image is directly related to one of the stamps. Although it's not exactly the same it is very close to the stamp showing the Apollo 15 astronauts using the Lunar Rover during their exploration of the Hadley-Apennine area.

The third cover has a hand-drawn, not hand painted, cachet for the First Day of Issue of the Skylab program stamp. Like the cover above the cachet is related to the stamp showing the Skylab Orbital Workshop (OWS) in Earth orbit with a Command/Service Module approaching the OWS, but the cachet isn't as closely related to the stamp as the second cover.

The last cover is an example of a McCall hand drawn cachet that is more 'generic' than the first three in that although it shows a Saturn-type launch on a FDC that was issued on the day the ASTP crew was launched it's not as closely related to the stamps as the first three covers since it doesn't depict the ASTP spacecraft in orbit or specifically show a Saturn 1B launch (the launch vehicle used to launch the ASTP crew). But because it does shown a Saturn-type launch vehicle it's still somewhat 'linked' to the mission.

There are many other examples of space covers with original Robert McCall hand drawn or hand painted cachets. Let's see some of your favorites!