Saturday, August 11, 2018

Australian Antarctic Territory




















Polar philately is a fascinating field and the stamps featuring Antactica are particularly attractive. There are, or have been, four issuing authorities for Antarctic stamps; the UK (British Antarctic Territory), Australia (Australian Antarctic Territory, New Zealand (Ross Dependency) and France (French Southern and Antarctic Territories).

The Australian Antarctic Territory has been issuing stamps since 1957. All stamps feature Antarctica, its scenery, science, wildlife and history. AAT has a very conservative issuing policy, one set a year is normal! You could quite easily complete an AAT collection, no regular stamps are catalogued over about £20. Once you have the complete collection mint and used why not try hunting down some covers actually used in Antarctica?

AAT stamps are valid for use in Australia, so most used examples have Australian postmarks. They do provide a contrast in content to the hot, dusty stamps issued by the mainland!




Sunday, May 13, 2018

Birds on stamps













The most popular theme for thematic collectors is birds, and it's easy to see why! Many thousands of stamps featuring birds have been issued since 1845 (one of the famous Basel 'Doves' sold a few years ago for many thousands of pounds and people were shocked as it was for a thematic collection!)

The range of stamps featuring birds is so vast that many collectors narrow their collection to specialise in ducks, birds of prey, penguins etc etc.

The UK has just issued a superb set of 10 first class stamps featuring owls. Perhaps now is the time to start collecting these issues?