posted 08-27-2026 11:02 AM               

Thought starters...

• First "outer space mail"
  
• First "missile mail"
  
• V-2 flown cover
  
• Apollo 11 cover cancelled on the way back from the Moon
  
• Apollo 15 cover cancelled on the Moon
  
• Apollo 11 flown to the Moon cover
  
• Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 EVA flown cover
  
• Enos recovery USS Stormes
  
• ASTP flown cover signed by all cosmonauts/astronauts
  
• first rocket mail cover
  
• first rocketplane flown cover
  
• first private mail from space
  
• Felix cat launch

posted 08-27-2026 12:31 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
How about the 4-cent Project Mercury stamp first day cover(s) from the post offices missing examples?

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posted 08-27-2026 02:40 PM               

• Flown USPS STS-8/Challenger cover w/all five astronaut signatures. Only 10 known to exist, for official presentations. Thornton refused to sign other covers in private hands.

• Early flown shuttle/ISS cover and letter before Expedition 1 began permanent habitation. Written by Cosmonaut Yuri Usachev of STS-101 crew aboard ISS.

• X-15 covers for FAI-certified flights above 62 miles signed by pilot Joe Walker (only one to fly beyond the Karman Line, twice).

posted 08-28-2026 08:08 AM               

But firstly a few words on some covers I've eliminated from my list.

Just because something is expensive and highly sought after doesn't make it rare. So let's eliminate Apollo Insurance covers, first missile mail, etc.

I also think that autographed covers shouldn't feature, as strictly speaking they are a different category to astrophilatelic matter (which doubly eliminates Apollo insurance covers for example).

So I am left with a list of those I have found incredibly difficult to have obtained with a few mixed in that despite my best efforts I still do not own. Of the ones in my top ten I have six in my collection. I found all of them incredibly difficult to find, and indeed cannot believe the amount of luck which was necessary to have found them at all.

So here we go (a ✓ means I have one):

• Fishermans Bend, Australia Rocket mail 1936 ✓
  
• John Glenn's USS Noa February 20th 1962 postmark ✓
  
• Scott Carpenter's recovery ship John R Pierce ✓
  
• Scatback monkey launch cover 20 December 61 ✓
  
• Cat Felix launch from Hammaguira ✓
  
• Alan Shepard USS Lake Champlain PRS cover ✓
  
• Ohsumi satellite launch cover, Uchinoura postmark
  
• Gagarin blue 3 kopeck stamp FDC Moscow 17/Apr/61
  
• Javelin ArgoD4 3May62 Wallops US-Japan
  
• V2 WSMR flown cover

posted 09-03-2026 12:44 PM               

• 3 covers Joe Walker took on flight 9
  
• 3 covers Forrest Peterson took on flight 22
  
• 2 covers Pete Knight took on flight 175
  
• 2 covers Mike Adams took on flight 177. 8 months later Adams died on his astronaut wings flight.

  These 10 covers were carried for Barbara Baker.

• 10 large cards illustrated by William Numeroff were flown on Pete Knight's speed record flight 188.

posted 09-06-2026 01:31 PM               

Items possessed by a state museum:
1. The cover Dave Scott postmarked on the Moon
   
2. The cover Mike Collins postmarked at the Moon
   
3. The letter Yuri Gagarin took on his Vostok flight

   Items which are or may be in private collections:
   

4. Apollo 11 trial cancellation. Collins did three when they left the lunar orbit
   
5. Cover flown by a V-2 from WSMR, two by two exist
   
6. Soyuz 5 / 4 flown letter, two exist
   
7. Discoverer 17 flown letter
   
8. Cover flown with Apollo 12 for Barbara Baker. It was stolen at a stamp exhibition.
   
9. Apollo 16 covers which landed on the Moon (25 with printed and three with hand-painted illustration exist)
   
10. Cover or card flown on an X-15 flight
    
11. Letter sent from the ISS to MIR space stations, two by two exist
    
12. Oleg Kotov's "Matryoshka" letter sent to the Earth with STS-131
    
13. Cover with withdrawn Indian 2 Rupees Soyuz T-11 stamp
    
14. Flown cover with withdrawn Hungarian 4 Forint Soyuz 36 stamp
    
15. Apollo 11 covers which surrounded the Moon
    
16. Apollo 14 covers which landed on the Moon
    
17. Apollo 13 covers which surrounded the Moon
    
18. Letter with message, delivered with Raduga-6 capsule to Earth, two exist
    
19. Card with contents, flown with Space Shuttle Discovery/STS-133 to ISS
    
20. Card with contents, flown with Dragon C2 to ISS, one exists
    
21. Card with contents, flown with Dragon CRS-4 to ISS, one exists
    
22. Letter with contents flown with Atlantis/STS-117 to Earth, one exists, the other one was lost
    
23. Letter with contents flown with Atlantis/STS-71 to Earth, three exist
    
24. Official flown French Soyuz TM-7 Souvenir sheet
    
25. Soyuz 14: First telegram from Space
    
26. Apollo 15 covers which landed on the Moon
    
27. Apollo 15 covers which surrounded the Moon
    
28. Registered letter with return receipt sent to Salyut-6 with Soyuz 28
    
29. Enos PRS USS Stormes
    
30. Soyuz 26 to 38 long-duration on-board cover
    
31. Gemini 8 Kennedy Space Center launch or Prime Recovery Ship cover signed by Dave Scott and Neil Armstrong
    
32. Mercury-Redstone 3 PRS USS lake Champlain signed by Alan Shepard

posted 09-07-2026 07:09 AM               

For a space cover collector without a huge amount of money to spend, in my opinion there is only one of the 31 covers you listed that would be possible to find and to possibly afford: An Apollo 15 cover surface flown (400 exist).

You listed a Gemini-Titan 8 PRS cover signed by Armstrong/Scott. Evidently you mean the USS Boxer, other than the Leonard F. Mason who actually recovered the crew?

posted 09-10-2026 07:23 PM               

Mentioned in response were two autographed covers that each made it half way to the Glory Land of a cover signed by all 12 moonwalkers, and a GT-8 Mason cover signed by both Armstrong and Scott.

Here are the two "half way" covers, with the GT-8 Mason signed only by Scott and an Apollo 14 cover signed by six of the 12 moonwalkers.

While falling short of being complete and very rare, both certainly still have merit.

GT-8 Mason covers are not in large supply (as it was a secondary recovery ship and stationed in the "wrong" ocean) and having Scott's autograph on this cover makes for a special cover.

While having only half the 12 moonwalkers' autographs, the Apollo 14 official NASA/KSC cacheted cover has at least one autograph from 5 of the 6 moonwalker 2-man crews, with both Apollo 14 moonwalkers.

posted 09-14-2026 10:24 AM               

There must be at least one out there surely?

posted 09-16-2026 09:42 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by micropooz:
Space Cover of the Week 702 also discusses an October 4, 1957 cover.

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posted 09-16-2026 03:07 PM               

I also included Steve Durst's 3.10.1942 postcard with Briefstempel Versuchskommando Nord.

Friedrich Schmiedl prepared 50 cards for each of the 1,100 first spaceship launches. They all bear a vignette and were postmarked in Krieglach, Styria where he worked. He was very disappointed, as nobody bought a single series.

Another, even more sophisticated series of Schmiedl commemorative covers exist: Since Gemini 7 and 6 were the first two manned spacecraft to dock with each other in December 1965, the great Austrian rocket pioneer tried to address letters and cards to numerous astronauts from East and West who were in space at the time.

These letters and cards were so valuable to the rocket pioneer that he did not hand in more than three or five of usually 20 or 30 pieces each during his lifetime. The 92-year-old Friedrich Schmiedl wanted to publish an illustrated book about them in his own publishing house. In his handwritten introduction on July 20, 1993, he noted that they had all been shot down by him or his wife Jenny with simple rockets without parachutes in his 36,000 m² rocket test site in a flat path along the pond to the "Rocket Catching Hill". As Schmiedl added orally, the 500 shells used for this purpose had come from France to British-occupied Graz after the end of the Second World War through the mediation of the Dutchman J. Dellenbag.

posted 09-17-2026 09:58 AM               

In 30+ years of collecting, I have seen two moon landing FDCs offered for sale in identical, custom-built displays with the following description: "This envelope with the private cachet of the United States Envelope Company, was one of twelve autographed personally by the three APOLLO 11 astronauts at the First Day Cover ceremonies for the Moon Stamp in Washington, D.C., on September 9, 1969." Both sales were from the estates of former US Envelope Company executives.