On this page you can see various different items associated with Space Craft covers made by Joe Fitzpatrick and Carl Swanson.
Space Craft Covers – Explorer magazine (1962-1969) – (link will open in a new window)
Space Craft Covers – Astronaut Series (1965-1966) – (link will open in a new window)
Space Craft Covers – Letters/Correspondence – (link will open in a new window)
Space Craft Covers – Other items from the estate – (link will open in a new window)
Space Craft Covers – Catalog – (link will open in a new window)
Space Craft covers were often sent to customers in printed glassines. I’ve seen the address in black, red & blue.
NEW! Chuck Vukotich kindly let me know that the black & red glassine both exist with & without the 25724 zip code. Shown below is the red version without zip code.
An early ‘Fitzpatrick’ cachet:
An early cover designed by Carl Swanson for the Space Unit ATA / ‘The Astrophile’ / Echo 1 Stamp FDI – 15th Dec 1960:
Another early cover designed by Carl Swanson for Eddie Mendlowitz and produced under the name ‘SAC’ – 20th Feb 1962:
Also in the early days, Joe Fitzpatrick asked Carl Swanson to do a separate cachet design for Project Mercury missions (as a sideline to the normal Space Craft range).
DESCRIPTION | DATE yyyy/mm/dd | IMAGE | POSTMARK |
John Glenn / Project Mercury / MA-6 ‘Friendship 7’ | 1962/02/20 | PAFB (M) | |
Scott Carpenter / Project Mercury / MA-7 ‘Aurora 7’ | 1962/05/62 | PAFB (M) | |
Wally Schirra / Project Mercury / MA-8 ‘Sigma 7’ | 1962/10/03 | CC (H) | |
Gordon Cooper / Project Mercury / MA-9 ‘Faith-7’ | 1963/05/16 | CC (M) |
Three different ‘Generic’ or ‘General Purpose Envelopes’ (see the excellent book by Chuck Vukotich) were sold for a short time around 1962-1964, and were used by collectors for a whole variety of different events. Type A (red), Type B (blue), Type C (grey/black).
Some examples from my collection are shown below:
DESCRIPTION | DATE yyyy/mm/dd | IMAGE | POSTMARK |
KH-4 4 / Keyhole 4 / Corona | 1962/05/31 | Lompoc CA (M) | |
Mariner 1 Launch | 1962/07/22 | PAFB (M) | |
Minuteman I / ICBM | 1962/08/09 | PAFB (M) | |
Pershing / P-39 test | 1962/08/22 | PAFB (M) | |
KH-4 12 / Grape Juice 3 | 1962/09/17 | Vandenberg AFB CA (M) | |
Titan 2 / N-12 | 1962/10/26 | CC (H) | |
Nike Apache Sounding Rocket | 1962/11/07 | Wallops Island VA (M) | |
Nike Cajun Sounding Rocket | 1962/12/06 | Wallops Island VA (M) | |
Polaris Missile Launch | 1962/12/06 | CC (H) | |
KH-4 17 / Taki 3 | 1962/12/14 | CC (H) | |
X-15 Flight (Joe Walker) | 1963/01/17 | EAFB (M) | |
Syncom 1 | 1963/02/14 | CC (M) | |
Minuteman I / ICBM | 1963/03/28 | CC (M) | |
X-15 Flight (Joe Walker) | 1963/04/18 | EAFB (H) | |
Titan 2 / N-21 | 1963/04/19 | CC (M) | |
Vela Hotel 1/2 | 1963/10/17 | CC (M) | |
Atlas D / ABRES REX-3 | 1963/11/04 | Vandenberg AFB CA (M) | |
Explorer 18 / IMP | 1963/11/27 | CC (M) | |
Titan 2 / N-29 | 1963/12/12 | CC (M) | |
Tiros 8 | 1963/12/21 | CC (M) | |
Relay 2 | 1964/01/21 | CC (M) |
Rubber-stamped ‘Spook Bird’ / ‘Spy Satellite’ covers designed by Carl Swanson. These were made for various different events from about 1969-1978.
Carl Swanson teamed with Jack McMahon (Manned Spaceflight Covers) and Astronaut Dave Scott & his wife, to produce a cachet for the ‘Decade of Achievement’ stamp in 1971. Show here is the cachet with various different stamp & cancellation varieties:
Below are examples of the various envelopes SCC used to send covers to their customers:
Below is a letter sent to collectors in April 1970 notifying them of the sad news of Joe Fitzpatrick’s passing, and the termination of Space Craft Covers.
Carl Swanson also illustrated some Russian space covers in the early 1970s. If you look carefully you’ll see his name in the designs. Some examples are shown here:
Carl Swanson designed this cachet which was used by the Goddard Space Flight Center Stamp Club for the Skylab launches: