posted 10-04-2021 10:11 AM               

I thought it would be fun to illustrate all original 1971 mission covers from a variety of vintage cachet issues and productions. Note that many of the cachet covers from the actual flight were never used nor cancelled for the launch and major flight events. So I took the liberty to apply postage stamps and postmark them for the golden anniversary on July 26, 2021, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Others that I have of the same type cachet covers were first posted for the original launch with an added second cancel 50 years later. I thought they would make an attractive, colorful, and unusual assembly of past cachet issues with added cancels for the golden anniversary.

On the top row you'll see an official NASA cachet (ONC), VIP launch card, a Bishop astronaut-crew insignia cover, the Irwin-created Shamrock covers, NASA Exchange emblem types along with some KSC-secondary cachet issues, Heritage Crafts, a KSCPS mailer's permit for Apollo 15, a Bendix Launch Support Division cover, a nice Sarzin "metallic plaque" cachet, one of the early Robert Rank "Lunar Voyage Cachets," a Cape Kennedy Medals cover by Tom Foley, and an Inner & Outer Space emblem mission cover that I know John Macco would be familiar with.

posted 10-06-2021 04:58 PM               

It's not that uncommon that different cachet covers would reach an Apollo crew before their lunar flight in crew quarters. As in this case, Major Worden even addressed his own received (gifted or paid for) mission cover(s) that would be launch day processed in the nearby HQS building post office while he and his crewmates were in quarantine conditions "next door."

What's interesting about this particular cover Dennis is the type of KSC-machine cancel applied. It's not one of the HQS smaller black-background NASA meatball cancels (Type 1) you would see "on base" from the HQS Building. Perhaps Worden handed over the cover(s) to family members, etc., when they visited the space center before viewing his liftoff. The type used on this CKM-cover, which I know you're quite familiar with, was a cancellation used at the KSC's Visitor Information Center for Apollo 15, less than a mile from the "O&C Building" that Worden included in his address.