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  Space Cover 741: Hand and mechanical postmark

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Author Topic:   Space Cover 741: Hand and mechanical postmark
Antoni RIGO
Member

Posts: 326
From: Palma de Mallorca, Is. Baleares - SPAIN
Registered: Aug 2013

posted 02-17-2024 02:11 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Antoni RIGO   Click Here to Email Antoni RIGO     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Space Cover of the Week, Week 741 (February 17, 2024)

Space Cover 741: Hand and mechanical postmark

As postmark is the key element in Astrophilately class, postmarking process for our space covers is the most important phase in the creation of our space covers.

When we decide to create a space cover, we search the address for nearest post office linked with the space event, select stamps according current postage rate and send our covers to be postmarked.

Once covers are received, if postmark is applied at requested, then normally add the cachet and we have our own space covers.
All the process in creation of our space covers is under our control except the time and way of postmarking our covers.

Depending on how postmark is applied, sometimes our covers result a failure, like some rocket launches, or in the majority of the cases, a success. But in this life, not all is black or white and they are a lot of grey tones. And this is the wealth of our space covers.

Cover shown was sent to be postmarked at Fort Myers, FL in Sep 12, 1966 as tracking station for the launch of GT-11 from KSC with astronauts Conrad and Gordon on-board.

Most probably this cover was placed upside down when entered on the postmark tape. The result was the mechanical postmark at the bottom left of the cover. Then, when postal employee saw this, applied a second but hand postmark over the stamp to fulfill the postal rules of postmarking the stamps.

It is not a rare case but a common situation when a lot of covers have to be placed on the postmark tape and some of them are not placed on correct direction.

For sure, many of ours have other covers with this similar result. Please, feel free to show and explain here. Thanks.

Axman
Member

Posts: 452
From: Derbyshire UK
Registered: Mar 2023

posted 02-17-2024 07:16 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Axman   Click Here to Email Axman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Antoni, your example cover seems to show more than just a mistakenly placed machine cancel with a separate hand cancel.

There is what appears to be a hand stamped postmark across the cover just above the address, which appears duplicated (which on an initial glance I thought was just a long blurred line of black smudged ink). It is hard to read and the image resolution is not sharp enough to be conclusive, but there appears to be a line of text in blue pen, overlain by a double strike of a black ink rubber stamp which reads (?) "Demand for additional postage".

Something has also been written and scribbled out in blue ink just underneath the stamp.

I'm assuming (but don't know) that a 5 cent stamp was insufficient postage to West Germany in 1966 - and that all the postmarks are consequent to that, and not necessarily due to a wrong feed into a machine cancel device.

Ken Havekotte
Member

Posts: 3813
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 02-19-2024 03:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ken Havekotte   Click Here to Email Ken Havekotte     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Here are a few more sample covers, Antoni, with combo-hand and mechanical postal cancels. This grouping of covers for now has a single Gemini ONC cover along with several Apollo entries, some of which are seldom-seen ONC's and VIP cards with dual cancels, that I thought would be interesting to display.

The first photo-scan below depicts a most unusual Apollo 8 launch day cover with an added Apollo 8 U.S. First Day Cover Issue. It has a rare Space Craft Cover cachet by Swanson, however, I have never seen this "partial" SCC cachet beforehand. The cover first started out with Apollo 8's launch from Kennedy Space Center on Dec. 21, 1968, along with an added Apollo 8 "Earthrise" 6-cent postage stamp for its official FDI on May 5, 1969, at Houston, Texas.

The doubled-sided cover below it is an unusual multi-cancelled cover for Apollo 12's launch, lunar landing, and splashdown all tied up together on the same cover. There is a KSC-hand cancel for launch on Nov. 14, 1969, Cape for splashdown-recovery on Nov. 24, and on the same back-sided cover is a machine cancel as depicted on Nov. 19 for Apollo 12's moon landing where NASA's mission control center at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas, is located.

Antoni RIGO
Member

Posts: 326
From: Palma de Mallorca, Is. Baleares - SPAIN
Registered: Aug 2013

posted 02-21-2024 01:15 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Antoni RIGO   Click Here to Email Antoni RIGO     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Alan, thanks for your comment. In truth, I cannot read the black ink line, maybe because I am not native in English language and also because I have not other cover with a readable line like this.

Ken, astonished for many of your covers. I really like most of them. I love when a cover has a singular mark which shouldn't be there. Thanks.

Ross
Member

Posts: 559
From: Australia
Registered: Jul 2003

posted 03-09-2024 08:58 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ross   Click Here to Email Ross     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I've seen a number of Recovery ship covers with dual postmarks. Below is one of the best from Gemini 7 which was recently sold on eBay.

Antoni RIGO
Member

Posts: 326
From: Palma de Mallorca, Is. Baleares - SPAIN
Registered: Aug 2013

posted 03-09-2024 10:17 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Antoni RIGO   Click Here to Email Antoni RIGO     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks Ross. And my question is as follows: why this second hand cancel when the mechanical first one can be read perfectly? Or I am understanding wrong, and first one was the hand cancel and second one the mechanical which also ties the stamp?

In summary, what is the reason because some space covers bear two cancels instead of just only one?

yeknom-ecaps
Member

Posts: 882
From: Northville MI USA
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 03-09-2024 01:56 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for yeknom-ecaps   Click Here to Email yeknom-ecaps     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Toni - it is usually just as you stated - the first cancel missed the stamp so a second was applied to cancel the stamp.

So it the case of the Gemini 7 cover the hand cancel was likely applied first which missed the stamp so a machine cancel was applied.

Though sometimes it is because of the first cancel, canceling the stamps but being unreadable so the second was applied. Example, the Norfolk cancels on the Skylab 4 recovery covers where the FEB 8 was hard to read so the hand cancels were applied.

randyc
Member

Posts: 904
From: Denver, CO USA
Registered: May 2003

posted 05-19-2024 06:25 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for randyc   Click Here to Email randyc     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Here's an Apollo 4 USS Bennington Prime Recovery Ship cover with both a machine and hand cancellation.

I suspect that because the machine cancellation is difficult to see on the dark Gemini stamps the hand cancellation was applied.

All times are CT (US)

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