Morris W Beck Naval Ship and Space Flight Covers US Navy

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 22nd year volunteering on this Morris W BECK site

#1 First cover in the 1000 Navy Series. 1962

US Navy USS Enterprise CVAN-65 Aircraft Carrier

Special "S" cover USS Enterprise Est $85

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

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

Latest Update: September 10, 2022

New Additions to This Site

Added Sep 2022. First one observed

In addition to printing covers, he also printed postcards and round buttons.
Below is a sample of a Beck postcard from eBay.

Thanks to Art Cole for bringing this to our attention.

Scan Courtesy of Larry Johnson-added 6/2022-Reverse Marking RCD No 329

Scan courtesy of Jeff Mills
Only the 2nd one we have seen. Wasp HT is much harder to find than MT on B709

Scan courtesy of Jeff Mills
Added to the checklist. The first B756-Essex we have seen

Another Skelley cover with address label over an address

The four Beck covers above are courtesy of Charlie Hamilton

Another GTA-12 cover postmarked on Midway Island. Sold for $87.75

Another Dual cancel cover B710

We have seen several B683 addressed to Skelley. This one sold for $23.20

B705 GTA-12 postmarked on Honolulu. Sold for $355

Scan courtesy of Mark Burton

Morris Beck served in the US Navy 1944-1946 and sent many covers for postmarking.
This one is a great example.
Scan is courtesy of Stewart Milstein

If you are not a member of the USCS, please consider joining.

Application for the USCS

Application for the Space Unit

Note that the round date plug is missing on this one

Tom McCue sent us this scan of B900 on the popular airmail envelope.

Sold on eBay for $38.50 a great price!

Larry Johnson sent us this scan, the cover sold for $42.00 along with a Navy Cachet from USS Guam that had same address and same stamp.
We might assume that this cover with the line cancel was on the Guam, but we don't know for sure,

Sold on eBay in March 2022 for $86.50 Addressed to W R Skelley B805 CREW

Unlisted USS Hornet sold on eBay for $255

Beck CREW cover
Scans courtesy of Larry Johnson. Sold on eBay $11.74 with S/H

New Additions to This Site

B558 CREW Sold for $47 on eBay Scan courtesy of David Ball

Sold on eBay for $61.56

Sold on eBay for $316

Skelley, this is the second B604 on our site addressed to Skelley

Sold on eBay for $110

B881 on the popular airmail envelope theme. B880 and B881 have many different cancels and locations.
He must have printed an excess number of covers for special requests
because of the numerous covers postmarked in various cities.
Scan courtesy of Charlie Hamilton

A similar, but different, B683 is on this site. Skelley managed to obtain multiple copies of important space recovery covers.

Jeff Mills sent us this scan of the 1964 cover for N S Savannah visiting Hamburg, Germany. Listed in Foreign.

Sold on eBay 5/21 for $41

This one sold for $361 on eBay in May 2021

This CREW cover sold on ebay for $68.00 Listed as B823 CREW

Skelley Really Hit the Jackpot with all his Access to Recovery covers

Here is another B640 addressed to Skelley. Note the cancellation on the stamp. It is NOT the same cover as above.

Beck Space Cover Used for FDC

This very unusual First Day cover on a Beck cachet is probably unique.
We don't know the details about this cover or who made it.
Others think it was an uncancelled cover that was then used for this FDOI.

The cover sold on eBay for $94.75

Added to site under B711. There is another one there that is very similar to the one above except the cancel has
different placement on the stamp. More Skelley magic.

Unlisted Beck Space Cover Addressed to Skelley

This sold Sept 14 on eBay. Probably one of a kind. Sold for $93.50 + SH

Adding A Few Interesting Beck covers Sold on eBay One for Over $300

A GT-5 Crew cover. Sold on eBay for $52

A bidder paid over $300 for this Beck cover addressed to Skelley, the Navy cover coordinator.
We are speechless!

Another example of Skelley's address label placed over an address on the envelope.
Remember that Skelley was the US Navy coordinator for covers. Sold for $21.25

Do you know the origin of the two rubber stamp lines on a few of these covers.
We know that Mr. Beck did not put these rubber stamps on covers.

Skelley Address from the PRS Sold for $153.75

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.

Amazing UNLISTED Beck CREW Space Covers

One of our readers sent the following scans of Beck CREW Covers.

All These Beck CREW covers are postmarked at Kennedy Space Center for Apollo flights.
Plus the covers have the space center official rubber stamp cachet.
These scans are courtesy of Mark Burton.
The covers are from his fathers (Ray Burton) cover collection.

Now listed under B824 CREW, at the end of the Apollo 12 recovery ships

Now listed under B840 CREW, at the end of the Apollo 13 recovery ships

Now listed under B841 CREW, at the end of the Apollo 14 recovery ships

Beck Space Covers

Compare the two B627 covers above and below

The cover above was added to our site in May 2014. It is the only one we have seen.
Note that it is addressed to Skelley, the US Navy Coordinator for the space flights.

In July 2020, this same EXACT cover was offered on eBay.

Another autographed (autopen) example of B520. This one sold for $48.25 in 7/2020

How Mr. Beck's cover service worked

Updated June 4, 2022
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 colornrubber 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

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

Application for the Space Unit

Note the text ATLANTIC is a separate sticker or label placed over the printed text
of PACIFIC.

Nice GT-4 CREW cover with the VIP label. Sold on eBay in 2020 for $52.91.
Even though we show several of these CREW covers here,
it doesn't mean that they are common covers. It is just the opposite.
These are very hard to find and usually sell for a high amount.
Scan courtesy of Dr Ross Smith.

The Article About CREW Covers Is Totally Revised

See the new page HERE