posted 01-21-2020 10:21 AM               

Space Cover #548: Moon Map Space Covers

For this week's Space Cover of the week I wanted to try something different. Instead of posting a cover and giving you all the interesting information I know about the cachet, designer or cancel, I thought I would ask the Universe and my fellow Space Cover enthusiasts to chime in with their shared knowledge and information!

For years I have collected covers made from maps just because from a design standpoint I think they are really very creative and unusual. In my collection I have Space Covers made from maps, Event Covers, and First Day Covers.

With the exception of the first cover shown commemorating the Apollo 12 Moon Landing Mission I know very little about this interesting covers.

The Apollo 12 cover was produced by the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Stamp Club and canceled Houston Texas on the day of the first Extravehicular Activity of the Mission by astronauts Alan Bean and Pete Conrad. The EVA lasted 3 hours, 56 minutes and 3 seconds.

The map making up this cover is a section of an Apollo Mission Tracking Chart.

The second cover is dated April 21, 1972, the landing date of Apollo 16 and canceled Houston Texas. Astronauts Charlie Duke and John Young spent 20 hours and 14 minutes during a total of three EVA's on the Moon.

The front and back of each of these covers (and others that I have) has as the image a part of a moon map or tracking chart.

I have seen "Space Map" covers for other Apollo missions and for a least one Skylab mission. Do you know of others, perhaps for Mercury or Gemini? Were these produced for Space Shuttle missions and is anyone making these today?

I am very interested to know who else collects these covers and if anyone knows what was the earliest know similar cover produced and who was the cachetmaker. I have seen some that appear hand made, others that seem mass produced.

Please enlighten us!

posted 01-21-2020 10:39 AM               

They started with Apollo 11, of which I have only a few, or I mean to say, with using official NASA lunar maps as envelope cover designs on both front and back surfaces. If I recall, they first came out for Apollo 11's C76 first day issue using original Apollo 11 orbital tracking maps of the moon and earth. They are some of my all-time favorite cachet "design" covers of man's first lunar landing, for sure.

But I do not recall, nor have knowledge, of any earlier official NASA map/chart cover designs for any of the Mercury, Gemini, and early Apollo missions before 11.

All of the Apollo map covers were produced by the MSC Stamp Club, as you have already noted. The map series did continue on for all subsequent Apollo lunar flights and also for the Skylab first day issue event, however at the moment, I can't recall if any were produced during the three manned Skylab crew visits or missions (I'll check on that a bit later and with ASTP, as I do recall having a few Skylab flight day events, including Apollo-Soyuz if I am not mistaken...).

It should be noted that most of the NASA stamp club lunar chart covers for Apollos 16 and 17, Chris, also had the designated mission patch design imprint over on the left side atop the lunar map cachets.

Meanwhile, as an avid "map envelope" collector, my firm did produce hundreds of full-sided covers for many of the early shuttle flights using NASA's earth orbital tracking maps. I still have a bunch of them, in regular envelope-cover sizes, with various cancels and others unused or in mint condition.

posted 02-28-2020 08:51 PM               

Matt wasn't a collector, but his wife, Eunice, was. She also sold covers. I bought my signed Apollo 11 insurance cover from her for $100. After a mission, he would bring the maps home to her and she told me and Bob Boyd that she would cut them one at a time (probably using some type of a pattern). Then she would use them to create the map cachets.

I also bought about 50 or more covers to her that were envelopes sent from autograph collectors around the world with requests for autographs. I later created an exhibit called, "Dear NASA" in which I show the myriad of strangely addressed envelopes that were received. Examples: "Space Station - Houston Texas USA; American Astronautss - George Marshall Space Flight Center NASA USA; The Commandant - Apollo 12, Space Center Houston USA; BM John Kennedy Space Center NASA USA America; Hiousto Taxas Hiouston space lebaratory The director of Hiouston; Cape Kennedy Rocket Base, Houston Texas USA & Spacemen's Adventurous NASA Huston Texcas.

posted 03-30-2020 03:07 PM               

With some extra time on my hands I have been going through more of my cover boxes and found these two Moon Map covers for Apollo 17. I wish I had thought to ask Gene Cernan to sign one or two of these.

posted 03-30-2020 04:23 PM               

But for some reason, it seems the lunar map covers are by far more scarce than the printed Apollo Earth tracking map covers that Eunice had provided by the Houston stamp club. I've got plenty of Earth map covers from Apollo, Skylab, but with only a couple or so issues from ASTP, along with lots of shuttle map covers from my own firm.

posted 03-31-2020 05:12 PM               

There are some different lunar map covers below, however, they're not official NASA chart issues, but rather commercial lunar landscape cachet productions from other space cover companies.

The Apollo 11 moon landing cover at bottom right, with a nice KSC-hand cancel on 7-20-69, has a yellow lunar crater cachet. It was produced by Tom Foley's Cape Kennedy Medals with a total of 10K certified and serialized covers printed in Cocoa, FL. Between 15 and 25 of them were hand posted while all the others had Cape Canaveral or Merritt Island machine cancels.

Not too far from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, is The Manned Spaceflight Cover Society owned by Jack McMahan. He provided a 4-day Apollo 13 cover set for the harrowing aborted lunar landing mission in April 1970. His one-sided cachet cover design featured a lunar landscape photo printed in bright orange that had been provided by an earlier Apollo lunar flight with an added crew portrait. Shown here are two of the cover series for launch and spacecraft explosion on April 11 and 13.

posted 03-31-2020 07:27 PM               

Here is another FDC on a lunar map, presuming it is an Apollo 15 chart.

posted 04-01-2020 07:07 AM               

Oh, I forgot, I do have a translunar and earthcoast chart cover signed by the 17 crew on splashdown day with an official US Navy recovery force RSC at bottom left. It was signed for me back in the late 70's or early 80's. If you want to see it, I can post it here.

posted 04-05-2020 07:31 PM               

This time a large Rand McNally official Map of the Moon has been made into a First Day of issue item for the #C76 1969 First Man on the Moon stamp. An added bonus is the signature of the stamp designer, my father Paul Calle!

posted 05-02-2020 09:50 AM               

Below is one of my Apollo 12 crew signed lunar map covers, but the signatures are not in a good area to be signed and your placements are much better. I've also provided an Apollo 16 signed map cover, however, all three crewmen are autopens, unfortunately.

The last for now is a crew signed Apollo 17 translunar coast map cover with an official Navy recovery force rubber stamp cachet applied over the cover's earth-map image. Still checking, though, on other Apollo crew signed map covers, however, it would seem to appear that perhaps the rarest of the lunar map cover series may very well be Apollo 15.

What happened to them? Did Rand not produce any for the mission, despite however, that I do have a couple for the official August 1971 first day issue of the Apollo 15 stamp pair, but no others that I can see thus far. Anyone else out there have map covers from Apollo 15?

A few days ago I did locate a few old Rand-printed price list- type pamphlets from the 70/80's that I'll be checking over soon.

posted 09-16-2020 07:17 PM               

Now I am always on the lookout!

posted 03-26-2024 10:35 AM               

The first cover combines two of my collecting interests, a #C76 First Man on the Moon First Day Cover and a map cover! The second cover shows an Apollo 16 crew patch cachet on a map envelope.

I'm always on the lookout for other map covers...

posted 08-24-2024 05:31 PM               

The map appears to be of Brazil and shows Ascension Island.

I would be interested to hear thoughts on why this map was used, was there a tracking station in that area used for Skylab?