posted 09-12-2017 08:20 PM               

Space Cover 434: Gemini 4 Return-to-Port

When does a cover reaching its destination too late become one to hunt for?

When it's sent to a recovery ship! At the recent BALPEX show a dealer had some USS Wasp recovery ship covers from the Gemini 4 mission — nothing special you're thinking, until you look at the date of the cancel. The covers have a June 10, 1965 postmark. With the recovery taking place and most covers cancelled from the USS Wasp on June 7th, what are these covers?

Collectors sent covers to the USS Wasp to receive the Navy RSC provided to the recovery ships by Morris Beck and the recovery date postmark. However some covers were mailed too late to arrive on the USS Wasp prior to the splashdown date. This mail (and other mail bound for the ship) was held at the port-of-call for the USS Wasp to return to following the recovery of the Gemini 4 crew and capsule.

Once in port, mail was brought aboard the USS Wasp and rather than returning the "late" covers unserviced to the collectors, the Gemini 4 Navy RSC was applied and the cover cancelled and mailed to the collectors with the June 10th date.

Therefore, these covers are considered as return-to-port covers for the mission as they were processed on the return-to-port date.

Many recovery ship collectors do collect these return-to-port covers along with the recovery date covers. For some later missions collectors specifically sent covers to the recovery ship specifically requesting postmarks for leaving port for the recovery and return-to-port afterwards.

Fortunately, the dealer had several copies of the cover so I was able to provide this cover to some other Space Unit members also at the show.

So the next time you are looking at recovery ship covers, take a closer look, the cover may not have the date you think and you may find a scarce return-to-port cover.