posted 01-06-2025 04:15 PM               

Space Cover 787: Gemini 7 Dual Cancel

Many space cover collectors have dual cancelled covers in their collections as they are genuinely popular for events such as the launch and landing dates for the shuttle missions (especially on mission patch cachets), Robert Rank's Gemini mission launch and landing cancels on his flocked covers, Robert Rank's Space Voyage dual cancels for the Apollo missions, Orbit covers dual Apollo launch and moon landing or recovery date covers, dual franking FDCs for ASTP with the US and Russian stamps and FDI cancels, Skylab 1 launch and reentry, etc. Many of these dual cancels are both Cape Canaveral or both Kennedy Space Center (KSC) or KSC and Edwards Air Force Base for the shuttle flights.

Much harder to find are earlier manned missions with dual cancels from multiple locations, specifically, a Cape Canaveral area launch cancel and a recover ship recovery cancel. Shown is such a cover for the Gemini 7 mission with a Cape Canaveral launch date (December 4, 1965) and a recovery date cancel from the USS Wasp (December 18, 1965). To apply the killer bar to the stamp the USS Wasp postmark was applied upside down.

The placement of the stamp and associated postmark left no room for the Navy RSC for the mission on the front of the covers. In this case the Navy RSC was not applied to the obverse side of the envelope either.

Presumably the creator of the cover added a typed cachet to the envelope:

This cover was cencelled (sic)
at the Cape on the 4th,
then flown aboard the
Wasp and cancelled again
on the 18th.

This is the only one like this that I have seen. Anyone else have one like this or one from a different mission?