posted 07-11-2023 09:00 AM               

Numbers? Who knows? Probably at least 500+ for each mission would be in the ballpark. But some flights had fewer done, with probably Apollo 13 and 16 the smallest number and Apollo 12 Bishop covers and Apollo 15 covers the most, while the Apollo 11 and 13 covers are currently among the most expensive.

Apollo 11's are expensive because of it being Apollo 11, even though a fair number of Apollo 11s probably exist. Apollo 11 CMP Mike Collins was asked if he could verify how many insurance covers were done for Apollo 11 and while he could not confirm the exact number, he said that he believed the number was maybe a 1000 in total.

posted 07-11-2023 09:26 AM            

For someone like me, late to the game, I'm finding it very difficult to locate any at all.

To think there are a thousand out there and yet I've only ever seen one Apollo 11 Insurance Cover for sale. Foolishly I didn't think of buying it because one of the signatures was overlain by a postage stamp.

posted 07-11-2023 01:58 PM               

Apollo 11, as we know, had three different types of insurance covers that could easily go past 1,000 and probably more.

In my opinion, not too much with Apollos 12 and 13, but I think 14 had more than 500, but less with Apollo 16.

As a side bar to Apollo 13, Haise on the other hand, had three different cachet cover varieties before his launch to the moon in 1970. But none of those covers had been signed nor postally cancelled until they were retrieved 30 years later after his lunar voyage. At that time, 348 emblem cachet covers of his were prepared, all signed by Haise and Lovell in 2000, and cancelled at KSC on April 11, 2000, in commemoration of Apollo 13's 30th anniversary. Most of the proceeds of those cover sales were for charity with The Astronauts Memorial Foundation and The Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

Regarding crew insurance covers that had been released by crew quarters here at KSC, keep in mind that many of them had been crew signed prior to their launch to the moon, but did not receive postal cancellations on them.

posted 07-11-2023 10:19 PM               

Heritage Crafts owner, Dave Ouellette of Titusville, a KSC-Bendix employee, did in fact provide small quantities of his well-done cachet covers (even with two different cachet types in some instances for the same mission) to Apollo crewmen while they were in protective quarantine at KSC before their lunar voyages.

Most likely his Apollo 10 covers were the first provided to a prime astronaut crew. The practice did continue for most all of the Apollo lunar landings, including 13, very few for 12, but not 17. In return, the Apollo astronauts would hand-sign a small number of the covers to Ouellette and his partner, cover artwork designer Don Wiles, as a "thank you" for providing them.

With some of the Apollo astronaut families, a very limited few of the Heritage Crafts covers did wind up with the more-commonly used mission emblem cachet covers owned/used by the family members as possible crew insurance covers. Others from crew quarters did surface years afterwards, all pre-launch crew signed, both with and without postal mission cancels on them.

posted 07-15-2023 04:36 PM               

But many actual insurance covers, including Apollo 11 insurance covers, were not documented in any way, including Apollo 11 insurance covers from the late-80's sale of over a hundred (thought to be from Mike Collins' holdings). However, those from the Neil Armstrong estate all came with iron-clad documentation and are the cream of the crop.

For Apollo 12, Pete Conrad was excellent about documenting his insurance covers and noted they came from him on the back of at least a good number of his covers.

I was fortunate to acquire a "look-alike" crew signed Apollo 13 cover that is identical to actual Apollo 13 insurance covers in every way, but it was signed at KSC for a NASA/KSC official while the crew was there for pre-flight training and is in no way an insurance cover, but looks just like one. It certainly would pass for one.

posted 07-15-2023 05:00 PM               

As a side bar, when I was able to acquire several of Pete Conrad's personal insurance covers for Apollo 12, I had asked the third moonwalker if he would write a few words on the back of each one to verify that personal connection. He did so, as did Jim Irwin beforehand, which I believe were the first insurance covers to have those verifying claims on the covers' back-side surfaces. When signing by Irwin, he did question in a nice way if I was sure he wanted me to do this, of course, I said "Yes sir, I am."