Space Cover 840: Variations in Hand-Painted CachetsI have been a collector of space covers for over 55 years, and recently began collecting space themed art. Therefore a natural collecting path for me to take was to combine the two: space covers with original hand-painted or hand-colored art.
In previous postings I included some of my favorite hand-painted covers and covers with original cachets by Robert McCall. This space cover of the week topic will feature examples that have original hand-painted or hand-colored cachets of various styles such as 'cartoon' cachets, fantasy cachets, abstract cachets, cachets that incorporate the stamp in the cachet and even cachets that glow under ultraviolet light.
The first cover is a First Day Cover (FDC) for the First Man on the Moon Stamp and has a hand-colored cachet by Richard Ellis. Richard Ellis was a well-known artist for U.S. stamps, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, covering topics from space to the Olympic Games to Black heritage and Native American themes.
For the First Man on the Moon stamp Ellis created three different cachets (launch, moon landing and splashdown). He also created hand-colored cachets for mission events for Apollos 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17 and other space-related stamp FDCs such as Skylab, ASTP, Viking and others. This cover is an example of what I call a 'cartoon' cachet.
The next cover, with a hand-painted cachet, is a First Day Cover for a stamp depicting a futuristic space shuttle. The designer, Ken Hodges, an artist who specializes in space, was asked by the US Postal Service to create an imaginary space scene set in the future and he submitted four paintings for consideration. The one chosen shows his imagined spacecraft flying over a planet with another planet in the background.
When the stamp was issued the scene received criticism because of its scientific inaccuracies but others defended the design as a fun way to think about the future of space travel. I have several hand-painted covers for this stamp but this one is my favorite because of it's 1950s 'retro' look (note the flaming comet). I refer to this type of cachet as a 'fantasy' cachet.
The third cover has a hand painted cachet for the First Day of Issue of the Alan Shepard stamp. The artist used a frame from the pilot observation movie camera mounted inside the Freedom 7 spacecraft that was used to observe Alan Shepard during his suborbital flight. Instead of painting the scene using sharp lines and edges the artist used a more 'abstract' approach in capturing Shepard inside the Mercury spacecraft
The fourth cover is an example of where the artist incorporated the stamp into the cachet. This is a dual First Day Cover for the release of the James Webb Space Telescope stamp and the 'Pillars of Creation' stamp. The Pillars of Creation are clouds of gas and dust stretching several light-years within the Eagle Nebula. Their shapes are created by strong stellar winds and high-energy radiation from hot, newly formed stars in star cluster NGC 6611, which lies at the center of the nebula.
The artist used a photo of the 'Pillars of Creation' that was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and skillfully incorporated the 'Pillars of Creation' stamp into the cachet.
The last cover is, perhaps, one of the most unique hand-painted covers made. It is a First Day Cover for the release of the OSIRIS REx stamp. OSIRIS-REx was a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission that visited and collected samples from 101955 Bennu, a carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid. The material was returned in September 2023.
What makes this hand-painted cachet unique is that the artist used paint the glows under ultraviolet light! The first photo shows what the cover looks like in visible light. The second photo shows the cover under ultraviolet light.
There are many other example of space covers with original hand-painted or hand-colored cachets. Let's see some of your favorites!
posted 01-11-2026 09:27 AM
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