Postage Stamps and Coins
Despite the lack of permanent inhabitants, the British Antarctic Territory issues its own postage stamps. While some are actually used by visiting tourists and resident scientists, the bulk are sold overseas to collectors. The first issue came in 1963, an engraved set with 15 values ranging from ½d to one pound, featuring a portrait of Queen Elizabeth overlooking various scenes of human activity in Antarctica. Several additional issues in the 1960s were followed by a decimalisation issue in 1971 produced by overprinting the 1963 stamps.
In 2008/2009, as part of the celebrations of the centenary of the 1908 British territorial claim, the British Antarctic Territory issued its first ever legal-tender coin.
For more information on British currency in the general region, see The Sterling Currency in the South Atlantic and the Antarctic.
Read more about this topic: British Antarctic Territory
Famous quotes containing the words postage stamps and, postage stamps, postage, stamps and/or coins:
“Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life’s page,
And be alone on earth, as I am now.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“A war undertaken without sufficient monies has but a wisp of force. Coins are the very sinews of battles.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)