posted 05-08-2022 10:21 AM               

Space Cover #649: Flown to the Moon

At one time, the only American astronauts' signed cover that I still needed to complete the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo manned flights was Gemini-Titan 3 (GT-3). I had been trading my duplicate U.S. covers with five Chinese collectors for a few years, expecting that with the number of collectors in China, that there would be an increase in the desirability of early Chinese covers once their first taikonaut was launched.

That happened, and I sold my accumulation of Chinese covers for $2400. At that time a GT-3 AU cover had sold for $1,200 and when I saw a Heritage Auction house about to sell one, I decided to bid up to $2,000 on it which would have cost me $400 in fees to Heritage. My wife was a retiree from American Airlines and so I flew up to St. Louis to participate in person. Before leaving I showed her an image of an Apollo 11 Flown to the Moon cover on the cover of the Heritage Auction catalog. I told her that that cover would sell for over $23,000 and she was incredulous.

At the auction, the GT-3 cover came and went. Someone bought it for $3,200. Of course I was disappointed but that's what auctioning is all about. Several items later an Apollo 15 Flown to the Moon came up and the auctioneer said that the bidding would start at $2,000. Not expecting to get it, I held up my card number and he said, "We've got $2000. Anybody else in the room? No? Any bids on the phone? No? Email? No? SOLD FOR $2,000! I was incredulous. Fellow Space Unit member Bob Boyd called me to see if he had won two lots that I was bidding on for him and I told him that I'd snagged one for him. I also told him of my great fortune.

When I arrived home that evening, my wife was sitting on the couch, doing some sewing.

"Did you win the cover?" she asked, without smiling.

"No, but I won a Flown to the Moon cover" I told her with a huge smile.

"Oh" she said, without changing her expression.

It took two seconds for me to get the message. "No! No! Not that flown cover. Mine is from a different flight and cost $2,000."

The chill in the room started to defrost. Here's the cover that I obtained, accidentally.

Also shown is an Apollo 15 signed insurance cover from the holdings of General Jim McDivitt. I have a certificate of authenticity for this, which came with a note that the crew had given this to him.

posted 05-08-2022 09:09 PM               

Was the card with the cover? The reason I ask is that it states that the cover was signed while Scott and Irwin were on the lunar surface and I don't think this cover was signed when they were on the lunar surface.

posted 05-08-2022 09:47 PM               

But it would be important to know the origin and documentation of this particular cover and possibly what time-frame it had been acquired. Similar covers like this (originally produced by Herrick for Worden) had been known to be duplicated that did not go to the moon. That story in itself is quite a mystery even to this day after half a century has gone by.

posted 05-09-2022 04:38 PM               

The cover was signed by the crew and had the card about the cover being flown to the moon like Ray's cover has.

I asked the owner of the cover about it being flown and he said it was not flown to the moon and he had paid $36 for it. He also stated he had gotten several of the cards stating "flown to the moon" along with the cover so Herrick clearly had a quantity of them printed.

posted 05-12-2022 05:04 PM               

After Sieger had sold his Apollo 15 Moon letters, NASA in 1972 impounded the 298 Scott letters, together with 60 Phases of the Moon covers which Herrick returned to Worden. NASA lawyer S. Neil Hosenball numbered and initialed these letters on the flap. The numbering of the Scott letters ran from 1 through 298, whereas the Phases of the Moon covers were numbered 299 through 358. NASA, the Senate, and the Ministry of Justice investigated the matter. The Ministry of Justice found that the astronauts had violated administrative rules, but not law. As part of an out-of-court settlement, Worden got 160 letters back on 19.07.1983. The remaining 198 letters were handed over to Scott and Irwin later. The three astronauts wrote notarized certificates of authenticity for them. They refer to the Phases of the Moon letters that had orbited the Moon. During the appointment with the notary, the astronauts adapted the confirmations for the Scott covers landed on the Moon’s surface by hand and initialed the changes made.

posted 05-12-2022 06:03 PM               

Of those possible 2,000 covers that resemble the flown lunar Herrick covers in almost every detail, I do believe that another batch not having KSC-launch machine cancels were not flown as well. That may also imply that those 500-2,000 covers outside of the total 144 were not hand signed by the crew, but possibly forged, and with very good forgeries.

The Sieger covers, overall, I consider a "closed book" on those lunar surface cover developments and history. But I still have unanswered questions about those "outside" the 144 additional Herrick "moon" covers.

Getting back to Ray's cover for a moment, if not machine cancelled, did it fly as one of the original 144 if no support documentation came with it? We know of those 60 seized by NASA, as Walter pointed out, were properly documented by the U.S. government itself. But what about the others outside of that 60/144?

posted 05-14-2022 02:52 PM               

Also on the back of the covers are the two red hand stamps that read "Launch July 26 -1971" and "Recovery Aug: 7, 1971". These red hand stamps were applied by Herrick to the 144 covers returned by Worden to Herrick.

posted 05-14-2022 03:05 PM               

There were two penciled numbers on the cover, but neither seem to be of any help. There is a small "11" on the lower right hand corner of the front of the envelope. On the outside of the flap, in the upper right hand corner is the number "2463" which could be a "2963".

Also, note that Herrick hit the top 8c stamp on the front the the red rubber stamp reading "July 26". Regency-Superior did offer this as a flown cover, but I do not know where the cover originated. Per Worden's book, all three astronauts signed the real covers during the plane ride from Hawaii to Houston. It is likely that they signed these in the same sequence: Scott, Worden and Irwin.

posted 06-13-2022 09:02 AM               

At least 500 and possibly as much as 2,000 of the same cover exist, identical in all details, including the personal autographs of the three astronauts. These were not carried on the Apolo 15 spacecraft and did not go into space.

"We have minutely examined a flown and unflown 'Moon Phases' cover side by side and yould not find any divverences" (spokesman for the U.S. Senate Committee on Aeronautical Aerospace Science).

posted 07-10-2022 05:29 PM               

Regarding the PRS cancels. They all look genuine to me, however, could it be that Herrick produced more than 144 covers of that original "to-be-flown" batch (possibly even a few hundred more)? That may help explain why some of the "unflown" covers were recovery ship cancelled, and of course, many others with the same type cachet characteristics were KSC-launch day posted. If any intended moon phase covers were not actually with Worden on Apollo 15, it would seem most likely that the Miami stamp dealer would have mailed them for onboard-ship splashdown cancels, would make sense to me, but were not flown.