posted 06-25-2022 10:38 PM               

Space Cover 656: First Beck Space Cover

When space cover collectors hear of a Morris Beck cover they automatically think of the Project Mercury through ASTP printed recovery covers that are part of the Beck Numbered Series of 1 – 1000. Or they may even think of the U.S. Navy recovery ship "Navy" cachets that were applied for the recovery ships and Norfolk Task Force 140 command site beginning with Gemini 3 as the rubber stamps for the cachets were supplied to the ships by Beck.

However, the first Beck space cover is actually a First Day Cover of the Echo 1 Communications for Peace stamp (Scott #1173) that was issued on December 15, 1960.

Beck began producing first day covers in 1952 identified by "M W Beck" for five issues – Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, American Automobile Association, NATO, Grand Coulee Dam, and Lafayette. His next first day covers would not appear until 1958 when Beck began producing the first day covers under the "Tri Color" label starting with postal stationary issues and later to stamps as well. Tri Color first days were also created for five United Nations stamps. Beck did not produce first day covers for all stamps that were issued each year.

To make things more challenging to track, Beck produced FDCs under several brand names such as "Tri Color", "mb" "Beck", "M W Beck", "B", etc.

The December 1960 Echo 1 first day cachet seems to be the end of the main production of the Tri Color cachets though there would be an occasional Tri Color produced in ongoing years – 1961 Workers Compensation Law, 1962 Arizona Statehood and Higher Education, 1963 West Virginia, and 1967 Andrew Jackson. Beck also produced and sold two different versions of Tri Color "generic" first day covers which were used by collectors for other stamp issues.

Interestingly, given his interest in space recovery covers, he decided not to produce a Tri Color cachet for the first day of issue for the Project Mercury stamp. The Arizona Statehood stamp that there is a Tri Color cachet for was issued on February 14, 1962, only 6 days before the Project Mercury stamp.

The one Beck first day cover that is known by space collectors is the one produced for the Skylab stamp on May 14, 1974 where the format is similar to his recovery ship cachets and references the Atlantic and Pacific recovery ship task forces. This cachet was done in conjunction with longtime space cover dealer Sean Marsar who designed the cachet and Beck printed it,

posted 06-26-2022 09:03 AM               

In trying to answer Ken's question about the last space cover, I found an earlier space cover Beck did - a FDC for the IGY stamp in May 1958! (Thanks thisismills!)

Note that the pictured cachet below has "Beck" and not the "Tri Color" label. As stated above, it is hard to track all the varieties of FDCs because of Beck using several brand names such as "Tri Color", "mb" "Beck", "M W Beck", "B", etc.