posted 09-19-2026 03:03 AM               

Space Cover 874: Carlos Altgelt signed cachets

Space cachets are the most prominent aspect of the Astrophilately and one the most studied by astrophilatelists.

In several of the Space Cover of the Week posts there are a lot of information and images about many cachet makers. However, information available in internet, even in collectSPACE, about Carlos Altgelt space cachets.

On top a space cachet for Apollo 11 crew in its visit to Los Angeles, CA on August 13, 1969 with a red meter without postage value affixed (generally used by philatelic purposes) and signed on right bottom corner by Carlos Altgelt/69.

Once I found this cachet, I began to research others, also signed by him, and found these:

For Apollo launches, generally applied in blue ink.

For Apollo Moon landings and/or Moon events, generally applied in red ink.

For Apollo and ASTP splashdowns, generally applied in blue ink.

Although these space cachets are for manned space missions, it can be found also space cachets for unmanned space missions (applied in red or blue ink).

A difference you can easily see in these covers is that some of them are signed Carlos Altgelt/69 and other just Carlos Altgelt, without year.

There are other most likely Carlos Altgelt cachets (always unsigned) using a Sokolsky design. See Space Cover of the Week 631 as example. But for Carlos Altgelt signed cachets I know for sure that there are other signed designs, with or without year 69.

I would like to open this post to see what other Carlos Altgelt signed cachets you can show here. Thanks.