Australian Antarctic Territory FDC

I think these are quite nice, as covers, but did notice a couple of odd things about them that need a little explanation.

The first very general question is whether the stamps themselves are valid for postage in Australia as well as in the Antarctic Research stations.

Then, on the first cover I notice that the cancellation is from Adelaide. Is it a correct FDC or not.

With the second set of three covers there is an Antarctic cancellation. However, the amount on each cover varies and I was curious as to the amount required to carry the letter to its destination in the U.S. Also there is a note on the cachet which reads`New Series - September 28, 1966 while the First day Cancellation reads 16 February, 1967. What`s happening here?

Hi
Yes, the first cover is a fdc 16-12-1959,in answer to your second question all AAT stamps are valid for postage in Australia.
I have several early covers posted in Australia with Cocos Keeling stamps on them.
Brian

Australian Antarctic Territory, Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island stamps are all valid for postage in Australia. I regularly use them on my local business mail, in the (probably vain) hope of stirring interest in stamps in the recipients. And before you ask, they can be used on international mail, but we're supposed to use specific International Mail stamps for that purpose. If we use non-International Mail stamps, we're supposed to add 10% extra for GST.

Most of the business letters I send out are oversized, double rate, letters costing $1.20 each. (As they're returning work to clients, I don't mind paying the extra 60c.) Currently, I'm using these Christmas Island crab stamps:



The differences in dates on your FDCs are probably due to differences in first days of issue in Australia and when the stamps reached the Antarctic bases - by ship. There was often quite a lag between issue in Australia and the stamps actually arriving down there.