Space Cover #280: Neil Armstong Burial at SeaNeil Armstrong died on August 25, 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Covers exist for the date of his death from several locations including KSC and Cincinnati itself.
Shortly afterward, on September 6th, it was announced that Armstrong would be buried at sea. None of these announcements gave the date of the ceremony or named the ship the ceremony would take place on. Therefore the creation of covers for the ceremony would take some work with little time to do it in.
A collector in the Washington, DC area embarked on a mission to find out the name of the ship and the date of the ceremony. Making calls to his Navy contacts in the area and additional calls to the Pentagon he was finally able to glean the needed information – the ship would be the USS Philippine Sea and the date would be September 14, 2012.
He printed up 12 covers and sent them to the ship. The ceremony took place at sea and the covers were cancelled and returned. I was fortunate to be given one of these covers.
Given the limited time to find the information and send covers for the ceremony I am sure this is a very rare cover. My guess is there is less than 100, maybe even less than 40. I have not seen others, have you?
posted 09-01-2014 04:04 PM
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