posted 01-07-2025 05:26 PM               

While all have orbited Earth, only 23 flew to the moon and nine have lived and worked on Skylab, America's first space station. It took decades in trying to assemble a crew signed launch cover collection like this that even continues on today in some areas. Some of the displayed covers from Gemini to Apollo that I was able to acquire were even owned by a few of those pioneering space voyagers.

That's a total of 148 autographs of NASA's first human space explorers, including two cosmonauts that joined an American space crew in orbit. I've tried to display an array of different space cachet cover types for the Mercury and Gemini space missions (see first panel presentations), such as SpaceCraft covers by Swanson, engraved Orbit cachets, Zaso of New York, Artopages, and even an official NASA cachet (ONC) for the final Gemini spaceflight.

With all the Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle flights, I've tried to use only official NASA crew emblem-patch cachet covers all completely astronaut crew signed. They can be seen on the second panel display that ends up with an Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) Russian cosmonaut crew signed cover since both crews made the first international rendezvous and docking flight possible. The last panel grouping has the first 24 Shuttle colorful mission emblem cachets with all KSC launch day cancels.

Another unusual feature about the crew signed cover set is that all of them (except for one or two that can be changed out later) were either postmarked with a launch day cancel at Port/Cape Canaveral (P/CC) or the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), the best two Florida launch site locations.

posted 01-08-2025 07:10 AM               

Just on the first two panels covering up to the end of the Apollo era (which is my area of collecting), I have yet to get even one autographed cover for Grissom, White, Armstrong, Anders or Brand, let alone a crew signed launch cover for them!

In fact, having just gone through my collection the only crew signed launch covers I have are:

• Mercury-Atlas-9 Cooper
  
• Apollo 15 (insurance) Scott Worden Irwin
  
• Apollo 16 (insurance) Young Duke Mattingly
  
• SL-2 Conrad Kerwin Weitz
  
• SL-4 Carr Pogue Gibson

posted 01-08-2025 02:17 PM               

I doubt that there are very many astronaut autograph collectors still active and involved in assembling a collection of crew signed covers for all the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights, let alone continuing with the 135 Space Shuttle flights.

But here, like you, Ken, is another such collector, but has surpassed you in this one astronaut autograph endeavor with crew signed covers (Surpassing you in just about any astronaut autograph area is quite a feat!).

From Day One of my space collecting I concentrated on individual astronaut autographs and especially crew signed covers (just to make it hard on myself and it has been hard).

With much time, effort, persistence and expense, I like you, have crew signed covers for the 31 Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights, but have continued on with the Shuttle flights and am complete through STS-98, the 102th Shuttle flight. So including the 31 Mercury, Gemini and Apollo crews, that's continuous crew signed covers for the first 133 NASA manned spaceflights. That 133 crew signed cover stretch includes a number of very rare and hard to find crew signed covers, which includes STS-51L.

I lack crew signed covers for three flights, STS-102, STS-116 and -118, but have crew signed crew lithos for those three flights, so do have a complete collection of crew signed covers (163)/lithos (3) for all 166 NASA manned spaceflights starting with MR-3 and ending with STS-135.

I had these covers displayed in my Picturetrail website, but in a discussion now in the Opinions and Advice forum, it was lost when the provider ceased operations.

posted 01-08-2025 04:42 PM               

While I do lack about a couple dozen of the later shuttle crew signed emblem covers, I am always trying to acquire those missing covers. There was a time when I paid less attention while pursuing later shuttle signed covers, which I know now, was a mistake as interest and enthusiasm was not a priority as it once was in this area of shuttle signed covers. But my main preference beforehand has always been collecting crew covers, unaddressed, not personalized, and in using official NASA shuttle emblem or mission cachet covers for crew signings.

You may have forgotten that some of my own shuttle crew autograph emblem covers, along with others containing a blue shuttle program rubber stamp cachet, were either gifted or traded off between us and I may have a few by Tim Preston. My thanks to you both for some of those now in my own shuttle crew collections. On other shuttle occasions, I was fortunate to acquire in-person crew autographs, but I wasn't able to visit with all the shuttle crews too much during the later years of the shuttle program. Rarely mentioned are personal astronaut visits and signings at my own home since the late 1980's (Jim Irwin was first).

posted 01-10-2025 05:06 PM               

Certainly there are a number of dedicated and determined collectors who have impressive crew signed cover collections, including some near complete with the Shuttle's 135 flights or the 166 flights from Mercury-Gemini-Apollo-Shuttle. Of course, there are many collectors who concentrate only on crew signed covers from Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, including Skylab and ASTP; a great collecting area.

I know of two collectors in Houston who went to many of the Shuttle post-flight crew returns at Space Center Houston where the crews would usually sign for those attending. It was a great opportunity to acquire complete crew signed covers and obtain extra autographs for others, which benefitted me occasionally.

One Houston collector was more interested in accumulating all he could, but the other was a very dedicated and serious collector and surely is near to having crew signed covers for all 166 NASA manned spaceflights.

Shown here are examples of several crew signed covers that are among the scarcest from the 166 Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Shuttle space flights. Ken has shown many others.

Crew signed covers for GT-3 (Grissom/Young) and GT-10 (Young/Collins) are two of the most difficult to find among the ten Gemini flights. I obtained this excellent GT-3 in a trade. I was lucky to acquire this GT-10 in a Space Unit auction for only $16.50 many years ago. The unusual autograph request typed on the cover may have discouraged others from bidding, but otherwise it's a great cover in every way. In my opinion, it's no worse than a typed address.

Crew signed covers for STS-61 and STS-77 are among the hardest to find among the 135 Shuttle flights. I was fortunate to acquire this excellent STS-31 in a trade. Mario Runco was not inclined to sign STS-77 covers, but I was able to have him sign and complete this -77 with help from a friend.

STS-71 was the first docking of a Shuttle (Atlantis) with the Russian space station Mir and included a crew changeout.

The top cover is a flown cover and was flown on a Soyuz spacecraft to Mir and was returned to earth on the Shuttle. Most of the autographs were applied while on Mir, and includes all ten who flew on Atlantis on STS-71, both up and down. The bottom emblem cover was autographed by all 7 launched on Atlantis.

This cover was canceled on the date of the loss of Columbia on STS-107 and is autographed by the crew. The other cover was acquired in a trade and is autographed by the STS-121 crew including Lisa Nowak. She was not good about autographing covers and has been unavailable to autograph collectors since sometime after her flight (To complete this cover it had to be mailed to Thomas Reiter in Germany and thankfully returned).

Not included besides STS-71, are crew signed covers for the numerous Shuttle flights to space stations Mir and the ISS. Many astronauts and cosmonauts were launched on Shuttle flights to Mir and ISS and others returned to earth on shuttles making it extremely difficult to acquire crew signed covers with autographs of everyone who flew (up and down) on these many flights. This situation made it very difficult to acquire complete crew signed covers for those flights; part of the challenge and difficulty that a Shuttle crew signed cover collector encountered.