Author: David Ball

Charting the Space Program Through Postmarks and Stamps

David Ball discovered a rare envelope flown aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger—and returned it to its rightful owner over four decades later.

Shuttle image credit: NASA

This is not your average piece of air mail. Created to celebrate the 25th anniversary of NASA, the small envelope left the Earth’s atmosphere aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983. As part of the cargo on the spacecraft’s STS-8 mission, the piece was one of only ten to be signed by all five members of the Challenger crew. Upon the shuttle’s return, five of the signed envelopes were presented to the President and Vice President of the United States, the Postmaster General, the Smithsonian Institution and the NASA Administrator. The other five were earmarked for the shuttle crew members themselves. But one of these envelopes was never received by its intended recipient—until it showed up on eBay, 38 years later.

Challenger Envelope

A lifelong stamp collector and author of American Astrophilately: The First 50 Years, David Ball is one of this country’s foremost experts on items like these: envelopes that can tell a story of space travel when postmarked near launchpads and mission control centers, and aboard recovery ships. When David saw the STS-8 envelope—or “cover,” in the parlance of philatelists—on eBay this past March, he was stunned. Five signatures were there, clear and visible on David’s computer screen. The postmarks were there, too, confirming the shuttle’s launch date from the Kennedy Space Center and its return to Earth one week later. Its listing on eBay, however, was a puzzle, and just the sort of challenge that David found captivating.

David was raised in Natick, Massachusetts, a bedroom community about 20 miles west of Boston. He started collecting stamps at the age of eight, when a tumble on his bicycle landed him in the hospital for two days. To keep him occupied, his mother bought him a stamp album. “She’d collected stamps when she was a young girl living in Trinidad,” David said. “Particularly for someone who’s introverted, collecting postage stamps is just a wonderful lifelong companion. She’s been supportive of my collecting activities for more than 50 years now.”

David with his mother Erica on Mothers Day 2021

David with his mother, Erica, on Mother’s Day, 2021

As a young boy, David enjoyed reading adventure stories about explorers, test pilots and astronauts. “I was born in 1959, so I was ten when they landed on the Moon,” he said. So it was natural that his stamp collecting interests might bend toward the stars.

In 1991, David was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. Serving as a flight nurse for 26 years, he led medical teams transporting wounded soldiers, many in their teens, from war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan to hospitals in Germany and the U.S. All the while, he continued to avidly collect stamps.

Then in 2006, David traveled to the World Philatelic Exhibition in Washington, D.C., an international stamp show held in the U.S. once every ten years. While there, at a lecture about stratospheric balloon flights given by an esteemed Swiss collector, David learned about astrophilately. Astrophilatelists aren’t all that concerned about stamps with rockets on them, or about envelopes with pictures of astronauts, although that’s part of their field. For astrophilatelists, it’s all about tracking the history of the space program through postmarked envelopes connected to various launches and missions. “The combination of places and dates tells a story,” David said. “When you put a bunch of these envelopes together, you can show how stratospheric balloon flights made it possible for us to have Project Mercury, or how the X-15 made it possible for us to have the Space Shuttle. Astrophilately is really the intersection of space and postal history.”

A long-time collector of stamps and lover of the history of space travel, David discovered an entire world and realm of study where space travel was at its center, but the stamps played second fiddle. “The stamps are actually incidental,” he said. “It’s really all about the postmark.”

At left: David holding the Moon cover cancelled by the Apollo 11 crew on the way back from the first manned lunar landing. The other envelope was postmarked by Dave Scott of Apollo 15 on the surface of the Moon. At right: Cover of “American Astrophilately: The First Fifty Years,” published in 2010.

At left: David holding the Moon cover cancelled by the Apollo 11 crew on the way back from the first manned lunar landing. The other envelope was postmarked by Dave Scott of Apollo 15 on the surface of the Moon. At right: Cover of “American Astrophilately: The First Fifty Years,” published in 2010.

David was hooked. Astronauts, he soon learned, had been taking envelopes to the moon since the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. For NASA, these covers were a great way to build excitement for the space program. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of covers have been created, selling for anywhere from a dollar or two for the most common ones to $30,000 for a signed Neil Armstrong cover that’s been to the moon. The cover David saw last March was remarkable not only because of its rarity—on the back of the envelope was a small numeral “3,” denoting it was one of the original ten signed covers—but because of its initial listing price: $3.00.

The bids climbed quickly from that initial low figure, as other astrophilatelists learned of the rare find. A friend of David’s who had met Richard Truly, the astronaut and former U.S. Navy admiral who was Commander of the Challenger mission, thought the cover might belong to him. As luck would have it, David already knew the former astronaut. Earlier this year, the two had met online during a meeting of serious stamp collectors, when David, a first-time visitor to the group, spotted a familiar name among the gathering. “In the chat box I wrote, you know, your name is the same as a famous Navy test pilot,” David said. “And he wrote back and said, yeah, that’s me.”

So when the rare Challenger cover appeared on eBay only two months later, David reached out to Richard and asked if there was a chance the cover was his. It was. For some reason, after the mission, NASA sent out the covers but Richard never received his—ironically, since he was the lone stamp collector of the bunch. As the bids rose, Ball let the shuttle commander know that if he won the auction, he would sell the cover to him for whatever he paid for it.

In the end, David won the crew-signed cover with a bid of $1,801.76. He sent the envelope to Richard, restoring the cover to its rightful owner after all these years. “That’s a once in a lifetime thing,” David said. “I’ve never heard of one of these being offered, and I doubt I will ever see one again.”

The crew of the STS 8 mission on the shuttle in 1983 with Richard Truly holding the stamp cover. Image credit to NASA

The crew of the STS-8 mission on the shuttle in 1983, with Richard Truly holding the stamp cover. Image credit: NASA

Not that David doesn’t have other treasures in his collection. He has a cover that was sent by a crew member of the Norge, an Italian-built blimp, which became the first aircraft to fly over the North Pole in 1926; and one from the Apollo 8 mission, the first to go to the moon, which he bought from a Navy corpsman who was aboard the USS Yorktown the day they fished the Apollo 8 astronauts out of the Pacific; and a cover from the Prime Recovery ship that picked up America’s first astronaut, Alan Shepard—which also started at an initial bid of $3 on eBay and ended at $1,400, since there are only 44 known still existing in the world. Just about every day, David is on eBay, searching for new finds. “It might be 3 a.m., and I’ll be looking for dog sled mail, or covers related to nuclear weapons,” he said. “I buy most of my postal history on eBay.”

Indeed, eBay has been an enormous asset for David, and others like him. “For the collector, and particularly for the specialist, it’s like the world’s biggest stamp show—but it’s indexed,” he said. “If you think about it, if I were to show up at a stamp show that was as big as eBay, I still couldn’t find what I was looking for. With eBay, you’ve not only taken me to the stamp show, you’ve also allowed me to run a computer search on the cover and told me to go to these three dealers. I’m even going to show you a picture of it. I mean, how wonderful is that? That’s a kid in a candy store.”



1st Day of Service KSC Florida

Dr. Kurt Debus, the Center Director, opened the newly constructed Headquarters’ Building on May 26th, 1965. By the end of the summer, more than 1700 personnel would occupy the facility including a new post office which opened to the public on July, 1st 1965.

The KSC Post Office is considered a contract branch of the Orlando FL, Post Office; however, it was given its own zip code and an official stamp cancellation of “Kennedy Space Center, Florida.”

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How Officials were produced and used

Despite repeated efforts with Pitney Bowes as well as former employees, the author has been unable to uncover what equipment applied KSC Officials. The extremely consistent placement on the cover as well as “tractor marks” are highly suggestive of mechanical application.

Non-standard envelopes, covers on subsequent dates or alternate locations, invariably have otherwise identical impressions but on a different part of the envelope. This points to a hand-applied rubber stamp.

Continue reading “How Officials were produced and used”


Do ONCs come in multiple colors?

In a word, no. Starting as early as SA-10 in 1965 there exist “trial proofs” in alternate colors. While they may have been struck to determine which color to use it is more likely they are philatelic favors done by Forrest Rhodes at the KSC post office for friends or to supplement his income.

Alternate colors are often seen in tandem with legitimate ONCs. When seen with Cape Canaveral hand cancels the postmark may be     backdated. When colors appear in alternate sized artwork the cachet is commercial.

Continue reading “Do ONCs come in multiple colors?”


How many ONCs were produced?

This is a difficult question to answer. The Kennedy Space Center Philatelic Society (KSCPS) tried to count every impression when the first ONC was released on July 1st, 1965. The total was 7116 and there is no reason to doubt the number. Yorio wrote that of these 3000 were philatelic. Being such a round number the 3000 may have just been an educated guess. Since dealers often work by the box load and #6 envelopes come 500 to a box this could easily be accurately be represented by 6 boxes. At some point, the post office restricted sales to 5 envelopes per person. It is unclear when that happened.

Then there is a question of whether we can distinguish philatelic from non-philatelic. We can assume that an unaddressed cover is for a collector and received handback service at the post office counter. That being said, a number appear unaddressed because a pencil address has been erased or a peelable label has been removed. Could we then say that addressed covers are non-philatelic? Not really. Collectors will recognize typed addresses to Yorio, Taiani and others. In a pile of 82 ONCs Ken Havekotte sent for this monograph analysis, there were five 1st Day of Service and three were addressed to different members of the Ironworker Union local 808. Either there are a bunch of union stamp collectors of someone who was using their friends to vary the names. After distinguishing collector from non-collector for the first cachet, Yorio failed to report philatelic totals for any of the next 19 ONCs. Beginning in late 1967 he reported philatelic numbers for the 12 Apollo launches through Apollo 14 when his booklet ends.

Also during this period Eberhard Coelle, a West German space dealer, produced a catalog/price list. The ISA-Katalogue is quite precise with differentiation of cancellation type, listings of semi-official essays and colors, and inclusion of the 1967 Fire Prevention and 1970 Open House ONCs not listed in Yorio’s 1971 work. Coelle also reports totals and philatelic numbers.   Unfortunately, his numbers generally appear to just be rounded off repeats from the KSCPS publication. Additionally, while Coelle’s catalog/pricelist has very detailed and useful information on postmarks he is sloppy in reporting whether a number is one of collectors or total produced for the event.

During his time as a dealer, Coelle developed a cozy relationship with Forrest “Dusty” Rhodes, Chief of the Mail & Distribution Unit at the Kennedy Space Center. Over the years Rhodes experimented with trial colors which he kept in a special box. When Coelle (and others?) came to visit the unusual items could be acquired by the space dealer “for his discerning clients”.

Where this puts alternate colors in the pantheon of KSC Officials? In every case there is an official color. In at least 8 instances there are different colors of the exact design. These could be seen as trial proofs but there is so far no evidence that printing alternate colors helped determine the final color to be used. Often the alternate was placed in tandem with the final color. The author’s conclusion is the artwork is a philatelic favor and non a pre-production intermediary.

There remains another problem. Beginning in the Apollo Program and continuing through Skylab, rubber stamps that appear at first glance as KSC Officials began to crop up. To the dismay of many collectors it turns out it is not illegal for space dealers to make copies of KSC Officials. Copying stamps and postmarks is a federal offense but creating lookalike ONCs is not. In the landmark Study of Suspect Space Covers written by Ramkissoon and Winick (2nd Ed included Paul Bulver)

According to a Postal Inspectors Report, “…the cachet was not an official indicia…” and dealers could purchase “…transparencies legitimately for use in printing commercial quantities…”. No further actions were taken against the Florida dealer. Suspect Covers page 4.9

 

 


What makes a KSC Official?

The branch of the Orlando post office agreed to apply cachets to envelopes mailed or presented for handback service. The designs were suggested by collectors and illustrators at NASA but the decision to use the image was made by the post office department. Usually, the department provided sufficient notice so collectors could request illustrated souvenirs of the launches.  Notable exceptions were the Open House in 1970 and Helios in 1974.

The fact that something printed was paid for or distributed by NASA does not make it an Official. Over the years a number of “etiquette” labels have surfaced. Two labels, Apollo 7 and 8 are rightly recognized as Officials. To be an ONC there must have a direct connection to the KSC post office. Similarly, rubber stamps donated by stamp dealers that were used on mail at the Visitor Information Center at the space center do not qualify under the author’s definition.

Like everything else about that mission, Apollo 1 is an exception to the rule. Normally, a KSC Official should be a publically available cachet issued on the day of the launch. When the fatal fire occurred three weeks before the launch, collectors had 50 examples of the proof postmarked to document the tragedy. In the same spirit that permits astrophilatelists to show the first Moon covers dated August 11th, so too must we break our rule and recognize the Apollo 1 proof as a legitimate KSC Official.

Similarly, an essay purportedly canceled at Cape Canaveral on the day of the Apollo fire should not be considered a KSC Official. Had it received the KSC cancel that day it might too be considered an ONC.

 


The Origin of KSC Officials

At the request of stamp collectors associated with the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Florida agreed to add a rubber stamp cachet to commemorate significant events at the Center. The artwork was applied from 1965, when the first appeared in conjunction with opening a contract branch of the Orlando post office at KSC, to 1975 with the last Apollo mission and a pair of unmanned Mars landers.

In 1971 Ralph Yorio, founder and first president of the KSC Philatelic Society, wrote the history of KSC Officials in a booklet entitled, Kennedy Space Center Philatelic History. With extensive assistance from consummate astrophilatelist Ken Havekotte and members of Space Unit it is time for an update.
Open to all NASA employees, KSCPS had at one point over 100 members. They actively assisted the NASA Postmaster and helped with the cachet designs. Essays from the first two years can be seen courtesy of Angelo Taiani in this monograph.

Most KSC Officials are not rare. The post office applied the artwork on all mail departing the facility that day (or in a few cases for the week). The KSCPS maintained documentation of the number of impressions made specifically for collectors. This usually represented between 10-30% of the envelopes marked.

As one might expect, the peak occurred for Apollo 11 when 165,650 rubber stamp impressions were made. It is believed that the majority were applied by machine, perhaps a Pitney Bowes device. If so it may have been a device as seen here although no documentation is known.

There are several reasons to believe the art was primarily applied by machine. Firstly, hand applying the 165,650 impressions made for Apollo 11 would have been a considerable effort. Secondly, depending on the cachet, the distances from the left edge of the envelope can be predicted within about 2mm. GT-IX usually touches the bottom of the cover while GT-XI is consistently 6mm higher. AP-10 starts 7mm from the left edge while AP-11 is twice that. Lastly, a large percentage of envelopes have “tractor” marks which could explain how envelopes are drawn from a stack and propelled through the device. A typical example consists of at least two segments, a 7mm track 15mm before the beginning of the KSC Official and a 95mm track about 10mm following the artwork. The tractor marks sit about 5mm above the image. The toothmarks are quite identifiable. The tracks consist of an upper and lower point 4mm apart with an indented bar in between. This is repeated every mm.

Like with postmarks, it is clear that some Officials have been  applied by hand. These are assumed when the distance from the left lower reference corner is substantially different and tractor marks are absent.

 


Long Lost KSC Officials Master Dies

KSC Official 3 months before the Apollo Fire.

They are known by different names, Official NASA Cachets (ONC), KSC Officials and NASA Official Cachets (NOC). They were applied for a decade in Florida to chronicle a golden age of manned space flight from the early Gemini program through the final chapter of Apollo.

Because they represented contemporary artwork applied under the auspices of the Federal Government, KSC Officials have remained popular among general collectors and astrophilatelists alike. Until recently, the whereabouts of the Master Dies has been shrouded in mystery. Now a clearer, but by no means complete, understanding of these rubber stamp masterpieces comes into focus.

KSC Official with curious multiple impression along the bottom.

In the summer of 1965 Space Coast stamp collectors encouraged NASA to apply a pictorial rubber stamp cachet to envelopes mailed from the Kennedy Space Center. Beginning with the first day of the new post office the illustrations appeared on manned launch dates as well as several other events of local interest.

In many cases several preliminary sketches and essays were created before a final design was selected. Once approved, the finished design was hand engraved into a metal plate. From this it is believed at least two rubber stamps were fashioned. The first, placed in a cancellation machine manufactured by Pitney Bowes (PB) and a second affixed to a wood block with the Master Die on the other side. This second example would be used as a “hand cancel” while the PB rubber stamp would function as the “machine cancel”.

Well worn PB rubber stamps.

Examination of rubber stamps used in the PB machine suggests considerable wear to the devices. Interestingly, all three show heavy usage. Two, the GT VIII and GT IX, are rarely seen with nice strikes on envelopes while the third, the first anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing can often be found with moderate feather detail but virtually absent on the spent rubber stamp. For short runs of several thousand, as was the case for some of the early philatelic requests, expecting a single rubber stamp to last seemed realistic. As the numbers mushroomed, however, would more than one rubber stamp have been procured?

At some point (perhaps included in the “gem” box?) many of the Master Dies passed from post office official to stamp dealer. Some were defaced to prevent subsequent unauthorized use. Others, including the three seen in this article, were not. As mentioned previously, each is a small word block (just slightly larger than the cachet) with the metal Master Die on one side and a rubber stamp on the other.

Unique hand engraved metal dies with hand rubber stamp on reverse side.

The Master Dies are in remarkably good condition. The metal looks like it was carved yesterday and while the rubber stamps are obviously used they show very little wear as compared to the rubber stamps used in the PB machine. This suggests that a relatively small number of impressions were made by hand cancel.

I am writing a monograph on KSC Officials. Please share high quality scans of rare or unusual Officials.

Continue reading “Long Lost KSC Officials Master Dies”


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Alec Bartos handpainted cachet on Riser FAKE MR-4