Update June 16, 2005: The long anticipated renovation project is now underway. All other projects that competed for my time are finished and this is now the top priority. It will take several months but I am working on it every day.

Collection Count: 1241 Covers
Collection Last Updated: January 4, 2004

The Naval Cover Museum is a cyber-museum specializing in the classification and presentation of Naval Covers. The museum exists only in cyberspace and is meant to be a collaborative effort by people involved in the collection and study of Naval Covers.

A Naval Cover is any envelope, postcard, or other postal medium that is mailed from or somehow related to a navy ship, location, or event. Beginning in 1908, post offices were established on board U.S. Navy ships and each ship had one or more postmarks to "cancel" the stamps used on the cover. The postmark, or cancellation, would usually have the ship's name and the date that the cover was cancelled.

Starting in the 1930's, covers with printed designs, called cachets, began appearing and established a large following. Many different cachets were designed and sent to various ships to be cancelled and mailed. Some cachets were designed for a specific ship while others were generic (perhaps for a holiday or commemorating an historical event) and sent to many different ships. World War II severely curtailed the creation and distribution of cachets and while covers with cachets are still created today, the phenomenon has never regained its pre-war level of enthusiasm.

Part of the mission of any museum is preservation, education, and scholarship. While millions of covers may exist, the early covers are now 60 to 90+ years old. Being mostly paper and ink, they will not last forever. Some are true works of art and others are worthy as historical documents. How many different types of covers exist? Unknown. Being a collaborative effort, our wish is to get many cover collectors to "contribute" their covers to the museum. Together we will educate ourselves and hopefully find an answer.

If your interest goes beyond the casual or hobby level, many covers in the museum are also captured in high resolution scans. These scans are not made available online due to their size but our hope is to make them available on CD. Anyone wishing close, detailed inspection of hundreds or perhaps thousands of covers, front and back, with vertical and horizontal rulers and color calibration strips, should contact the Curator for details and availability.

Naval Covers present us with a snapshot of history; a window into a passing age. You hold history in your hand and wonder about the lives, the men and women, the events that were part of that era. Their image is preserved here. Come and visit them.