posted March 15, 2004 03:50 PM               

I believe I understand their purpose; what I would like to learn is more information about the "levels" of covers, how many for each mission were produced, what is the typical price range for each mission, which sets have not yet been made availalbe to the public etc. Things of that nature.

posted March 16, 2004 04:59 PM               

I know more now than I ever could have dreamed of. Maybe his response, and this post, can serve to inform others and maybe protect some of us newbies from ever buying something other than we thought.

posted March 17, 2004 06:25 PM               

To see excellent examples of the eight major types (three Appllo 11s, one each for Apollo 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16) then go here and at the top click on "Insurance covers."

Remember, these things were not done officially and were done mainly by a stamp club in Houston for each Apollo crew and were handled by that stamp club ("Manned Spacecraft Center Stamp Club," as seen on some of the "secondary" insurance covers) and then the astronaut families kept the covers while the mission was underway. After they returned safely, the covers were stored away or dispersed in various ways and no "official" record was kept, especially by NASA, which, I guess, had really little or nothing to do with them. They may have given their official OK for the astronauts to create them, but they were just something that the astronaut crews did themselves with much help from the MSCSC.

You are probably confused and wondering about the MSCSC "secondary" insurance covers. These are absolutely insurance covers, but not of the most popular and well known type - as shown by Leon. The Apollo 15 "secondary" insurance covers are certainly genuine, but because the cachets used on them were also available to collectors at that time, it's possible that some seen were canceled for the flight and then later signed by the crews - which, of course, would not make them insurance covers. That's the problem with the secondary insurance covers: the cachets and covers are exactly identical to those that were actually created and used as insurance covers, but also were made available to space collectors and could have been signed after the mission. But those Apollo 15's that come with a letter from Mrs. Irwin stating that they are insurance covers, ARE insurance covers and are certainly worth collecting.

The main insurance covers are unique, in that their cachet design (a crew patch/mission emblem cachet with various insignia at the bottom, such as Astronaut Wings) was used ONLY for insurance covers for Apollos 12 through 16 and not made available to collectors - generally. But there were a number left over and many were stamped and canceled but not signed. As time went by many of these were sold and dispersed and some were later signed by one or more of the astronauts. But these are NOT insurance covers, as they were not signed by the crew, preflight, and put up to be sold in case the crew was lost. These left over covers are generally referred to as "insurance-type" covers and pop up from time to time. I have obtained a few from Ken and in the last 2-3 years and have had some of these canceled/unsigned insurance-type covers signed by various astronauts.

Numbers? Who knows? Probably at least 500+ for each mission would be in the ballpark. Ken could tell you better than I. But some flights had fewer done, with probably Apollo 13 and 16 the smallest number and Apollo 12 and 15 the most. Probably Apollo 12 and 15 are seen the most and Apollo 11's and 13 the most expensive. Apollo 11's are expensive because of it being Apollo 11, but probably a fair number of Apollo 11s exist - I'm thinking that around 300+ were done for each family, but probably only a few hundred have been released.

Hope all this gives you a good background on Apollo insurance covers and I'd be glad to answer any other questions you may have. I am not an authority on insurance covers and what knowledge I have I mostly got from Ken Havekotte.

posted March 18, 2004 03:24 PM               

To my knowledge, no one knows for sure of the exact quantity of covers that were purchased -- at production cost -- by the crewmembers that were signed and left behind. The Aldrin family had many (Joan for certain) as did the the Collins family. Similar covers, all signed by the crew in advance before their moon-bound trip, have also surface that were in the possession of various personnel that worked exclusively inside the astronauts' personal or crew quarters while at KSC, and many with NO postal cancels! It should be noted, for the record so-to-speak, that the MSCSC was only involved in their own stamp club printed cachet designs, contrary to what others may have believed. An aerospace public relations specilist, after hearing about the Apollo 11 philatelic practices that originated from a Houston stamp club, wanted to do his own -- and for the astronauts' exclusively and their families -- a special cachet design that he also wanted direct involvement and control over. Thus, this is what created the first "insurance astronaut-insignia" cachet designs with various symbol(s) that were incorporated into the cachet design of high-quality rag content envelopes. The special cachet covers were produced by a printing company in Cocoa, FL -- not Houston -- from, starting with Apollo 12, to Apollo 16. The astronaut-insignia covers, in fact, had nothing to to with the MSC Stamp Club, even though Apollo crews still maintained contact with them in signing and using (even flying some to the moon) their stamp-club cachets as another type of "insurance" cover.

posted March 19, 2004 08:21 AM               

This, now, is a most interesting story since similar crew-signed covers have surfaced without no postal cancels, and, even some of the Apollo 11 cachet covers were autographed ON BACK of their surfaces with nothing on the front side, except for the cachet itself. To make matters more complex, even the special Robbins medallions that were struck for the Apollo 11 crewmembers were recently discovered -- again they apparently originated from crew quarters -- but some of the pieces had no numbers! But that is another story for another time.

posted April 06, 2004 11:20 AM               

I know that there are no astrowings on it and no regular insurance covers exist.
Is this an insurance cover then?

I have seen a shoebox with crew signed Apollo 17 mission logo covers but they were all cancelled at the 10 or 20th anniv. from Apollo 17. I have only seen 4 of the one Ihave in my collection.