US Navy Covers and First Day Covers by Morris W. Beck

FREE Online Reference Catalog, FREE Checklists and BLOG for US Navy Cover and Space Cover Collectors
Compiled and Managed by Owen R. Murray, A "LIFE" member of the USCS L-5676 joined in 1966, and ATA Space Unit #4500
This Web site has over 3,500 scans of Beck Navy and Event Covers with Reference Text. 

Our 24th year volunteering on this Morris W BECK site
 

 US Navy USS Jefferson SSBN 618
#1 First cover in the 1000 Navy Series. 1962
 
US Navy USS Enterprise CVAN-65 Aircraft Carrier
Special "S" cover USS Enterprise
 

Mercury Flight of Cooper
 
US Navy USS Hornet Apollo 11 Man on the Moon Moonlanding
USS Hornet-Neil Armstrong

 

Home     Morris W. Beck Cover Basics      About this Web Site    Beck Space Cachet Designs     Beck's Personal Covers   Autographs

 #6 USS Dace Overprint   Checklists     Cover Varieties Oddities     Beck's Messages    Postcard Messages to Customers

   
1943-1970's Events
     Nuclear Ships     Foreign    President Series     States Series    First Day Covers   

The Numbered Series    About the Series 
1-50    51-99 MA-8   S,100-150   151-200   201-250   251-299   300-350 MA-9   351-402   403-455    456-514 GT-2    515-569 GT-3, GT-4, GT-5   

570-621
GTA-6 GT-7   622-687 AS-201, GTA-8, GTA-9, GTA-10, AP-3, GTA-11        688-769 AS-202, GTA-12, AS-204, AS-501, AS-502, AP-7    

770-841
AP-8, AP-9, AP-10, AP-11, AP-12, AP-13, AP-14     842-899 AP-14, AP-15, AP-16, AP-17, SL-II, SL-III, SL-IV     900-951   952-1000 ASTP


 Small Rubber Stamps on Space Covers   Apollo PRS Postmarked in Hawaii    WHAT IS A CREW COVER?    Quantities

ASTP USS New Orleans July 25, 1975 onboard Cover   How postage rates affected collecting   Beck Printing Log

W R Skelley info and covers   Morris Beck Commercial Postcards

           
Copyright ©1999-2024 Owen R Murray, Retired USAF.  All Rights Reserved.      Revised: Sunday March 10, 2024.

A Resource and Blog for Collectors of Morris W. Beck Philatelic Covers. 
Owen R. Murray, Retired MSGT 20 yr USAF/ANG    About this site  

In memory of Morris W. Beck, 1926-2011, US Navy WWII Vet

Beck's 1000 set of covers is acknowledged as the most desirable US Navy Space Recovery covers

 

 


New Additions to this Beck Site  03/10//24


Newport News Hand Cancel and Ship's Cachet
This Beck cover is very interesting. 
The postage stamp was put on the cover AFTER the cachet was printed because the cachet isn't printed over the stamp. 
The person that put the stamp on the cover  placed it so the ship's cachet wouldn't be in the way. 
Possible explanation is that Beck sent printed envelopes to the ship without the postage, Like he does with CREW covers.
So should we consider this cover as a CREW cover even though it has the B number?  Interesting.
We have viewed other B422 covers and this cover is the only one with the ship's cachet (rubber stamp)


The added text below the Beck cachet has only been seen on GT-3 covers. 
We don't think Beck printed this text


This VERY Hard to find Beck cover has sold for as high as $45.  This one sold for only $5.00  lucky collector!
Note that this one has a different cancel than the one we had in the listing. See HERE

 


Added 3/24 This cover sold for $30+ on eBay


Added 3/24 This cover sold for $46+ on eBay

See more information on the Boxer covers for GTA-8 HERE


Sold for $34.06 on eBay.  The Airmail envelopes are very popular with collectors


We 're not sure who created the two printed lines below the cachet. 
We have seen this on about 4 Beck covers from GT-3.
We seriously doubt that Beck printed the two lines of text.
This cover sold for $37.50
 


Sold for 21.85 on eBay


Currently being Auctioned on eBay  3/01/24


VIP  Label

 


Larry Johnson found another 1943 Beck cover.    HERE
Scan courtesy of Larry Johnson  Added 2024

 






Authentic autograph of Alexei Leonov



 

 


A VERY interesting cover for Skylab.  Dated FEB 9 with WAVY Lines,
the date the ships post office was open after the recovery. 
It is addressed to Dr. Ramkissoon.  This is the only Skylab cover dated FEB 9.
Scan is courtesy of Tom Steiner

 

Charlie Hamilton sent us the scans below from an state collection he is handling.  Great covers, speak for themselves!
The rubber stamps on the reverse of some of the covers were applied by collector/cachet maker, R Whitney


Front and Reverse of the above Beck 773 courtesy of Charlie Hamilton from an estate he is handling.

The cover above was sold on eBay for $112.50
 


Front and Reverse of the above Beck 776 courtesy of Charlie Hamilton from an estate he is handling.

The cover above was sold on eBay for $61.00



Front and Reverse of the above Beck 783 courtesy of Charlie Hamilton from an estate he is handling.

The cover above was sold on eBay for $112.50
 


Cover addressed to Harry Gordon sold for $27.35


 

An Early Beck 1943


Scan courtesy of Jeff Mills
A good example of Beck's very early Naval Covers.  Probably Beck's first printed cover. 
We asked him which was his first cover and he replied that he couldn't remember. 
This one was printed while he was in high school. 
He graduated from high school and joined the US Navy in 1944.

 

 

How Mr. Beck's cover service worked

Updated October 2023
We've had some inquires from newer collectors trying to understand how Mr. Beck's cover service worked
and how there can be several covers from a recovery ship with different "B" cachet numbers.

Morris W. Beck of Wisconsin was a collector starting while in high school in the early 1940's and later was a
cover dealer after he returned from service in WWII. He stopped producing covers in the mid 1970’s.  

His most popular series of Naval covers was the set from 1962-1975 and consisted of 1000 cachets (covers).

He advertised his cover service in the philatelic newspapers offering to print a cachet on collector’s envelopes for a few cents each.
  See  http://beck.ormurray.com/advertising.htm

 He printed cachets for Navy ship commissioning, launchings, anniversaries, first day covers, etc.  
The most popular cachets (covers) were the space recovery covers.

Mr. Beck tried very hard to get the recovery force information from the US Navy as early as he could before a flight, but as
time went on, timely information became hard to get in time for printing and shipping deadlines.

Early in his efforts, he tried to print the name of the recovery ship on the envelope but that didn’t work very well, so most of
his space covers DO NOT have the ships name on the printed cachet. (although the ships name does appear in the postmark
(cancellation).

The US Navy had a coordinator  to receive space cover postmarking requests from collectors and dealers.  
Generally, the Navy had a 2 cover limit per collector, per event.  
Collectors sent their requests for rubber stamp cachets directly to the Navy.  
Mr. Beck was one of a number of dealers that provided the service of a printed color cachet.  

As a "side note" please note that Beck's printed color cachets and the rubber stamp cachets used by the US Navy were very
similar.  This is because Mr. Beck produced the rubber stamp cachets used by the US Navy. 
He sent them to the US Navy for each space flight at no charge.

  
Above Left: Envelope sent to US Navy by collector.  Navy applied cachet and postmark.

Above Right: Envelope with Mr. Beck's printed color cachet and "B Cachet Number".  Navy applied postmark only.

Both the example ASTP covers probably had address removable labels and both were sent to the collector as usual
mail after postmarking.

On the later Apollo flights you will notice that the image of the rubber stamp cachet that the US Navy used was smaller than the cachet Mr. Beck printed.  Large rubber stamps were hard for the US Navy to apply so they requested smaller images.  Remember that Mr. Beck provided the rubber stamp cachets to the US Navy free.

Mr. Beck's Naval Cover Service

Mr. Beck provided the service of printing a multicolor cachet on collector’s SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) envelopes sent to him.

Collectors could also send a SASE directly to the Navy for the single color rubber stamp cachet and postmarking.   

For Mr. Beck's cover service, Collectors would send a supply (25-50) of SASE to Mr. Beck with a small service fee for cachet printing.
See  http://beck.ormurray.com/advertising.htm

Using the information provided by the Navy regarding the total number of ships in the recovery force,
Mr. Beck would assign a cachet number accordingly, such as B 708, B 709, etc.

Look at some of the print log sheets Mr. Beck filled out that are shown on our site.  http://beck.ormurray.com/becklog/index.htm

So if the Navy told Mr. Beck there would be 12 ships in the recovery force, then
Mr. Beck would print 12 different cachet designs and assign/print accordingly.  B708, B709, Cachet ID, etc.

Mr. Beck would print the multicolor color cachet on the envelopes sent to him by collectors.  
The printed multi color cacheted envelopes were sent by Mr. Beck in bulk to the Navy for postmarking.  
He prepared 400-1000 envelopes per ship according to his customers orders.  Most customers requested one or two covers of each event.
He packed all the envelopes for one ship into a bulk container marked accordingly.

When the Navy received the shipments of printed color cacheted envelops from Mr. Beck, they distributed the envelopes to the ships of the recovery force.

This is where it got “messy” because someone at the Navy opened boxes and redistributed envelopes without
regard to the various cachet ID numbers.
 So, ships received envelopes all mixed up.

We have an article about Beck's multicolor envelopes without the B number.  These are called CREW covers.  See article HERE

 

Beck Space Covers


This Duncan scan was sent to us by Charlie Hamilton


This Duncan scan was sent to us by Charlie Hamilton


We normally don't show newspaper clippings but this one is very interesting.
 

The Article About CREW Covers Is Totally Revised

 

 

 
 
CLICK HERE to see past articles...

CLICK HERE to see older articles...

More older articles HERE

Even more older articles HERE

 


Morris W. Beck Naval Covers for Collectors

Naval covers have been popular since about the time of Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet.  A naval cover is an envelope or postcard postmarked on board a naval ship.  The cover might commemorate a naval event such as a keel laying, launching or commissioning of a navy ship.  Other covers are simply sailor’s mail that now has historical value for the postmark on the US Navy cover.

Collecting memorabilia from US Navy ships is a very interesting hobby and shares a piece of US Navy history.  Some people collect pictures, ash trays, lighters, photos, launching or commissioning programs, US Navy patches, and envelopes or postcards postmarked aboard US Navy ships.  Similar in appearance to a first day cover, a naval cover commemorates a US Navy event or simply be sailor’s mail sent home with a letter enclosed.  In any case, these covers are very collectable.

Today, the Universal Ship Cancellation Society, USCS, in an international society where collectors of US Navy ship covers and postcards exchange information about their favorite collecting interests. 

Many collectors specialize in a special type of naval covers or envelopes.  Some US Navy veterans have a special interest in the ships they served on.  Ships like destroyers, aircraft carriers, submarines, battleship, etc.  Some collectors of first day covers or FDCs also collect navy covers as a specialty.

The US NASA manned space program and the US Navy recovery ships are also very popular subjects for naval covers.  The US Navy postmarks from the US Navy ships in the Atlantic or Pacific fleet that picked up the US space astronauts like John Glenn, Neil Armstrong or others are very popular.  One of the most desirable modern naval covers is from the USS Hornet that picked up the astronauts, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins after the Moon landing Apollo 11 NASA mission.  Dozens of US Navy ships participated in the US Space recovery program including, USS Hornet, USS Wasp, USS Intrepid, USS Lake Champlain, USS Guam, USS Mason, USS Randolph, USS Ticonderoga, USS Iwo Jima, USS Kearsarge, USS Okinawa, USS Essex, USS New Orleans, USS Guadalcanal, USS Bennington, and many others.  All astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab programs were recovered by US Navy ships.  There are covers for most of these events.  The covers for the earliest manned space flights are among the hardest to find.  Some of the most popular covers are for aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers, battleships, and other types of US Navy ships.

Over the years there have been many individuals and groups produce some very attractive naval covers for US Navy events and space events including Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab manned space flights.  Morris W. Beck was a collector of US Navy covers and started a service to provide other collectors with quality printed US Navy, space covers, and first day covers. 

Beck served in the US Navy during World War II aboard a US Navy Destroyer.  Morris W. Beck covers are well known among collectors.  Beck produced a very popular series of 1000 US Navy event covers 1962-1975.  Beck’s effort was a labor of love and his charge to service covers for collectors was only pennies per cover.   This web site is dedicated to the US Navy event covers, president series, state series, nuclear ships and first day covers (FDC) produced by Morris W. Beck. 


 

 

 

 

Home     Morris W. Beck Cover Basics      About this Web Site    
Beck Space Cachet Designs     #6 USS Dace Overprint  #220 USS Lowry
   Cover Varieties Oddities  Beck's Messages  Beck's Personal Covers  Astronaut Autographs
1943-1970's Events
     Nuclear Ships     Foreign    President Series     States Series    First Day Covers   

The Numbered Series    About the Series  1-50    51-99 MA-8   S,100-150   151-200   201-250   251-299   300-350 MA-9 
 
351-402   403-455    456-514 GT-2    515-569 GT-3, GT-4, GT-5    570-621 GTA-6 GT-7    622-687 AS-201, GTA-8, GTA-9, GTA-10, AP-3, GTA-11  
688-769 AS-202, GTA-12, AS-204, AS-501, AS-502, AP-7     770-841 AP-8, AP-9, AP-10, AP-11, AP-12, AP-13, AP-14  
 
842-899
AP-14, AP-15, AP-16, AP-17, SL-II, SL-III, SL-IV     900-951   952-1000 ASTP


Articles and Resources: NEW Small Rubber Stamps on Space Covers
Apollo PRS Postmarked in Hawaii    
Beck 929 Hawkins

ASTP USS New Orleans July 25, 1975 onboard Cover

How postage rates affected collecting       Beck Printing Log for Numbered Series


        Download Beck Cover Checklists   
 

This is an Online Reference Catalog.  Please note that the naval covers illustrated on this Web site
 are for reference only and not for sale.  This is a private Web site for the enjoyment of collectors of navy covers. 

Please send comments or questions to Owen R. Murray   

Copyright ©1999-2024 Owen R Murray.  All Rights Reserved.    Revised: Sunday March 10, 2024.

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