Talk:Postage stamps and postal history of the Falkland Islands

OR move from article
When an article says "I surveyed about 200 covers", that starts to sound like original research, which is verboten (WP:NOR). Is this data about cover usage available in a published source that we can quote? Otherwise, it's going to be hard for a fact-checker working 10-20 years from now to verify whether any change is a fix, or vandalism. Stan 03:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

In absence of any response, I moved the text to here:

"Collecting Falkland Islands Postal History Since 1960s

Like stamps of most countries of the world, the Falkland Island releases since 1960, while not valuable, are difficult to obtain postally used, or on cover. The difficulty increases as you near the present. There are Official First Day covers (FDC), of course, but for some decades these have been unaddressed and do not themselves carry messages through the mails, so the cancels are more favor cancels than actual postal cancels. Most used stamps from the Falklands in the post-1960 period seem to be soaked off of FDC rather than actual mail. The reason is simple enough. The Falklands population is quite small, and as is the case generally in the world, the percentage of stamps used in the mails that is saved for collectors is likewise quite small. FDC are ordered by dealers, and so exist in larger quantities than actual covers that went through the mails - or at least are easier to find. A set of used stamps from a FDC sell for about the same amount as the FDC so there is no present financial loss in soaking them to sell. Of course over the years the number of FDC will diminish and collectors of the future may find them more valuable than the loose stamps.

What then exists for postal history collectors, once the FDC is in the collection? Fortunately there are special event covers for occasions such as the visit to the Islands of then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. A sub-class of these which has postal history interest in-itself are ship covers. Any ship approaching or leaving any port may frank on-board mail with the stamps of the country owning the port. Such covers are often stamped "Paquebot" to identify them to postal authorities. Likewise any ship of Falklands registry can use Falklands stamps at any port in the world. I have found no Falklands ships, but as the Falklands are the "Gateway to Antarctica", and a popular stop for cruise ships touring the southern half of South America, covers bearing Falklands stamps related to port calls by cruise ships are relatively easy to find and do often represent actual mails. Military ships stop by also. In the 1970s there were Argentine ships, but since the Falklands War of 1982, these seem to have stopped coming. British naval vessels are regulars, however, and generate covers. The ship and special event covers usually will not provide examples of every stamp from a set in use - they are typically single letter rate usages.

Judging from ebay listings and what I've found at dealers, local mail is more difficult to find. When you do find it don't be surprised to find the addresses very rudimentary. The Islands are a small town in effect. So an address like "F.I.C. Stanley" will serve to get a letter delivered to the Falkland Islands Company in the main town, Port Stanley. Like ship and event covers local mail usually bears the single letter rate stamp. Covers mailed from the Islands' residents to other countries are difficult to find.

To give you a rough idea of distribution of destinations of all covers, tourist or local, I surveyed about 200 covers mailed from the Falklands from 1946 on - mostly from 1970 on. I found 77 local covers - ie mailed from the Falklands to the Falklands -and covers abroad to 15 countries: 53 to England, 47 to Argentina, 31 to the USA, 23 to New Zealand and 1 or more to Ascension Island, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, West Germany (and since 1991, just Germany) France, Israel, Jordan, South Georgia, and Switzerland. This is not a random sample, of course, as I am seeking covers to different destinations, and I avoid getting duplicate covers to the same destination bearing the same stamps. In another survey, FDC were even more limited in destinations showing only England (12), the Falklands (6), Argentina (5) and the USA (5).

The Falklands War: The Argentinians occupied the Islands from 2 April to 15 June 1982, according to Stanley Gibbons publications. During that time Argentine stamps were used at times, with an "Islas Malvinas" cancel. Mail bearing Falklands stamps were accepted, but cancelled in ball point pen. Be careful, if you buy covers from this period.

Offices Abroad on the Falklands There is a British garrison on the Falklands, which uses British stamps on mail which requires postage. Mililtary forces mail to home is free, but mail to other places is not. The cancel in 2003 was two intertwined circles saying "Falkland Islands BFPO 655 Post Office" Covers bearing this mark, or British stamps canceled with it, are liable to be scarce."

Stan (talk) 17:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Air mail history
Someone should write what year air mail started to operate. That must have been a revolution for mail to the Falkland Islands.--BIL (talk) 20:52, 26 January 2014 (UTC)