Comments

By Dr Ross Smith (SU 5002)

An extremely interesting and very well presented exhibit. Some really impressive covers and overall a great exhibit. Some covers that stood out (to a Recovery ship cover collector) are several early Mercury launch covers, an early tracking station cover for MA-5 (only six exist), a USS Noa cover with a time slug from MA-6 (less than 10 are known), an extremely rare USS Farragut cover and a very hard to find USS Pierce cover from MA-7, a previously unrecorded USS Kearsarge cover from MA-8 with a PM time slug, a USS Wallace L Lind Gemini related training mission cover, several Gemini Beck crew covers, a very rare USS Wasp cover from Gemini 6 (aborted mission), many Captain's covers, covers and letters from crew members and other hard to find covers. Also a nice range of Apollo PRS covers including a very unusual cover designed by a member of the crew of the USS Essex for Apollo 7 (only 18 were made) and a range of USS Hornet covers with unusual and colourful cachets from Apollo 11. Also present are Apollo Insurance covers and Recovery helicopter covers. I also noticed a particularly attractive and scarce hand painted Bob Boudwin cover from the USS New Orleans for ASTP. All in all, a wide range of interesting and sometimes rare covers.

I did however notice a couple of problems.

1) The MA-8 USNS Longview / USS Kearsarge cover. Despite this cover, there is no evidence that the Longview was involved in MA-8. The only tracking ship involved in MA-8 for which covers are available is the USNS Hunstville. In fact, there are USNS Huntsville covers available that are identical to David's USNS Longview / USS Kearsarge cover. In addition there are USNS Huntsville covers with corner card postmarked in Honolulu later in the month. The interesting question is how were these USNS x / USS Kearsarge covers created. Were they aboard the tracking ships during the mission. If so, how were they postmarked aboard the Kearsarge on the 3rd. The recovery was mid afternoon. Seems unlikely the Carrier could have made it back to port, had the covers brought aboard from the tracking ships and postmarked them on the 3rd. Are they PRS covers that were later brought aboard the tracking ships and had the corner card added? Were they covers from the tracking ships that were brought aboard the Carrier before it sailed? Or, heavens forbid, were they backdated? While they are definitely interesting and worth having in a collection, the straight tracking ship cover has fewer questions.

2) The MA-9 USNS Sunnyvale cover. Again, there is no evidence that the Sunnyvale was involved. There are three tracking ships from this mission for which covers are available, the USNS Huntsville, USNS Range Tracker and the USNS Watertown (this later one is very hard to find).