Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Dumont d'Urville Station, TAAF

Sent from the French Antarctic research station Dumont d'Urville in Adélie Land. Would have been nice to see the handstamps on the back placed on the front instead. Oh well. Not exactly sure why I used a pink envelope. The stamp on the left was from a sheet of two titled "The Great Glaciological Raids". And the stamp on the right shows shaped and polished Arfvedsonite.

5 comments:

MattLang23 said...

Hey Jeff,

Last week I received my cover from Dumont d'Urville as well! I love that you created a website with Antarctic addresses me and my friends have since been sending to various stations. I was wondering if you've been successful in retrieving covers from bases and other countries not mentioned on the website?

Jeff said...

Good to hear the site was of use to you. I plan to update it later this year after I hear back from a few of the stations. There were some other addresses listed on that website last year but I removed them because it had been so long since I had last heard from them. I want to confirm the addresses before I put them out there again.

These two are pretty safe bets:

Norway's Troll Station:

Troll Research Station
c/o Norwegian Polar Institute
Framsenteret
Postboks 6606 Langnes
9296 Tromsø
NORWAY

I just received a cover from Troll that I sent last fall. Quick turn around at the start of season because there is an airstrip there.

Spanish Stations and Icebreaker

Capitán BIO Hesperides
Arsenal Militar de la Armada Española
Cl.Real s/n
Cartagena, Murcia 30290
SPAIN

This is an address for reaching the captain of the Spanish research vessel Hesperides. It services the Spanish bases Juan Carlos I and Castilla. And the ship has a postmark of its own. I got this address from a Spanish postmark bulletin some time ago. They accepted my request a few years ago and I'm waiting to hear back from them again this year.

Some other countries with bases I've contacted but not heard from recently: Uruguay, South Africa, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Argentina.

Italy: My last request (Sept 2023) was returned with a message saying the postbox I used was closed. Waiting for another request to be returned to confirm the new address.

Japan: Last couple of attempts failed. And my attempt to do it through Japan Post was rejected because it's a service they only provide to domestic clients.

Chile: I have not received a cover from a Chilean base in quite some time. My last attempt (few years ago) failed. I sent more late last year so still waiting for a reply. 

Germany: I have heard they no longer accept philatelic requests of any kind for Newmayer Station or the Polarstern research vessel.

JPC said...

Hi Jeff,

I can confirm, the AWI is no longer processing collectors mail for Neumayer and RV polarstern due to high workload. They will just send them back unprocessed. I have an official letter from AWI, If you wish I can send it to you.

Regarding Bases in Argentina my advice is to use IRC (International Reply Coupons) and send them to the Philatelic Bureau in Buenos Aires. The german Polarphilatelic Society is using it this way.

For Uruguay you may use Instituto Antarctico Uruguayo, Av. 8 de Octubre 2958, 11600 Montevideo, Uruguay. For Europe for example its 90 Pesos, maybe its like to Canada.

Regards,
Jens

MattLang23 said...

Thank you so much Jeff!

We are definitely going to look into the Norwegian and Spanish bases as well!

This year we will be sending covers to a few islands of the TAAF, Australian bases and the remaining two Britisch bases (I have received Signy and still waiting for Rothera) (I suppose that paying for surface rates over airmail rates increases the likelihood of a boat cachet).


Maybe a base for the future but I know that Turkey is investing in developing a permanent base as well. It is through ITU PolRec.

MattLang23 said...

Hey Jeff,

Maybe you know already about the Swedish stations. But I had contact with the Swedish Polar Institute and they told me that because of the very short annual expedition of 6 weeks, the do not handle philatelic covers.

- Matthijs