posted 12-26-2024 12:21 PM               

The primary cover used by the crew mainly for their families as an insurance policy cover retained throughout the lunar flight and afterwards was the Bishop crew patch design with an astronaut Navy wings insignia below the flight emblem.

There was a second choice, but limited, with some Apollo 12 emblem covers by the Manned Spacecraft Center Stamp Club (MSCSC). It's not known how many of this cover variety Conrad, Bean, and Gordon had, but most in my opinion were crew pre-launch signed. They were more likely made available to the crew early on, however, they had been told by Bishop that he would like to provide the preferred crew emblem cover design for their primary cover purposes.

Keep in mind that a small number of crew signed MSCSC covers could very well had been crew signed for stamp club members of MSCSC, before launch and afterwards, but were not kept by any of the crew nor their families as official crew insurance covers.

Not known, though, by many crew insurance cover collectors was a third cachet cover type. This was a printed revised spacecrafts' name emblem cachet with text produced by North American Aviation (later Rockwell International), NASA's prime contractor for the second stage (S-II) of the Apollo/Saturn V rocket and the launch vehicle's Command and Service Module spacecrafts. It had been my understanding that the Apollo 12 crewmen did in fact choose this third cachet issue to serve as an additional and final crew insurance cover. The cover quantities used by the crew it would appear were much lower than in comparison to the first two varieties selected.

posted 12-27-2024 10:25 AM               

The Bishop cover is certainly the recognized insurance cover and since the envelopes were provided basically only to the astronauts by Bishop there is no doubt about them.

The other two covers were "mainstream" ... meaning there are many (probably hundreds, if not thousands) unsigned versions of them produced ... with, undoubtedly, some collectors requesting and getting crew signatures on them AFTER the mission.

At one time I saw multiple crew signed Rockwell covers that the signatures were obtained by the collector after the mission by mail. Not exactly sure but I think they were signed in the same order and location on the cover.

Hence, without the signed notation Ken had Bean add (GREAT idea Ken!), a crew signed cover of those types cannot FOR CERTAIN be described as an insurance cover.

posted 12-27-2024 10:56 AM               

The stamp club along with Rand Philatelic Bureau did produce a few thousand of them. Of those, some before launch and post-flight, had been crew signed but were not kept by the astronaut families as true insurance covers. There are some ways to help determine their signing traits and time frame in which they were signed.

But also for consideration would be those crew signed covers kept by the families in that many of them, already gifted to friends and others as crew/family-owned covers, had no verification in proving such a claim. The only way to be "insurance" originally owned if there was an astronaut or family provenance letter provided and/or a written verification on the reverse or otherwise.

NAA/Rockwell covers were signed by crewmen for employees and possibly a few others, but the Bishop covers were extremely limited to non-astronaut/Bishop uses.

Bottom line, as pointed out, was that Capt. Bean himself put in writing that those three different cover varieties were indeed a part of his own "cover insurance" collection.

posted 01-04-2025 09:19 AM               

Apollo 7 — None that I know of as confirmed by Walt Cunningham during a visit more than 20 years ago on Merritt Island.

Apollo 8 — Two different Apollo 8 cachet covers may apply. The owner of Heritage/Crafts Covers in Titusville, FL, was Dave Ouellette, an Apollo employee that worked for NASA's Bendix Launch Support Division here at Kennedy Space Center. As an employee for Bendix during the Apollo program, Dave also produced a second different cachet cover with the approval of Bendix that were mostly internal for company workers to use/purchase.

During a personal visit by Dave Ouellette in the spring of 1973 when I was a high school senior, he showed me an impressive all-Apollo crew signed cover set. During our visit and cover conversations, Mr. Ouellette said by a verbal agreement with Hal Collins, the supervisor of KSC's astronaut office, that he would deliver a batch of his Heritage/Crafts cachet covers to the astronaut office (or better known as crew quarters) at the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building (O&C) along with a second but much smaller batch of Bendix company covers about two weeks before a planned Saturn V launch. That arrangement first started with Apollo 8 in Dec. 1968.

With the help of Bendix graphic designer Don Wiles and possibly Gene Heiss, the cover design team, both cachet cover types were produced for every Apollo crew launch from 7 to 17. In addition, that also included a few other special cover editions by both, and with Bendix releasing company covers that included the first two unmanned Saturn V launch events. As a side note, cS from a prior post topic of mine should have a complete set of Bendix cover issues from 1967-72.

In exchange for no monies involved (mostly gifted), the crew as a "thank you" would return a few of them hand signed back to Dave. He would give some of the signed covers to his partner Don Wiles of unknown small quantities for his provided artwork.

Once the astronauts had them for their own personal uses, a small number of them were stamped up, signed by each crew member while in protective quarantine at KSC, space center postmarked on launch day, returned posted covers back to crew quarters, given and retained afterwards by crew families. A few more likely may had been gifted to a few close space worker friends outside the family.

Apollo 9 and 10 — Same as above for Apollo 8, but there was another cover variety used by some of the crewmen, rather as "insurance-type" covers is not so clear in my mind.

A very few of the Apollo 8/9/10 Heritage/Crafts covers had type-written addresses on them to a prime crew member or even a close friend or co-worker, such as Lovell, Anders, Stafford, and Cernan of their own flights with mail codes of either CB or CF in mailing them back from KSC via first class to their MSC/KSC work or home addresses. Most were usually signed by that addressed astronaut near his own head shot cachet depiction, but none that I have seen, were all crew signed, though.

Note the printed crew mission emblem (or patch) covers for some of the early manned Apollos. Once again, they were stamped, posted, and with some crew signed inside their astronaut quarters prior to launch. The earlier Apollo patch-insignia type covers were mainly available at the nearby "next door" NASA gift shop located on the first floor near the main door entrance of KSC's Headquarters Building. Their possible status as any sort of crew-owned insurance cover(s) were never confirmed as little or no information had been available in providing a factual statement or better attestment about them.

Of the few Apollo astronauts that I was able to question in relation to the colorful printed mission patch covers by NASA Exchange, most could not recall any details, but only a couple that I know of did have access to a few of them in their own cover collections. Of those, only a handful were signed while most of them were not it would seem, and the same would apply for their postal cancels at the space center. In my own observations, pre-launch crew signed official NASA color patch-emblem covers before Apollo 11 are extremely hard to come by. On the other hand in some rare instances, a very small number of them had originated from NASA officials at Kennedy, completely crew signed before launch and with no addresses on the covers. The same could also apply to the prelaunch crew signed Bendix covers as well.

posted 01-04-2025 09:45 AM               

This is an Apollo 10 "Insurance cover" I have signed by astronaut Tom Stafford. I'm guessing this is one from Tom Stafford's personal collection? The Heritage Craft cachets are one of my favorites.

posted 01-04-2025 10:52 AM               

I did a little research and came across this Heritage Craft Insurance cover and a Rockwell Contractor covers that was offered in a Heritage auction in 2022. I'm guessing the H/C Insurance covers are among the rarest the Apollo 12 astronauts signed.

posted 01-05-2025 06:59 AM               

John Young as commander of Apollo 16 used a few hundred of the MSCSC-crew emblem types for himself. He signed a few hundred of them before his lunar landing mission, but none of those were signed by his Apollo 16 crewmates.