Letters At Sea from the First Byrd Antarctic Expedition 1928-30

 

 Personal mail using shipboard stationery of the First Byrd Antarctic Expedition support vessel S.S. CITY OF NEW YORK, sent 1 November 1928 from Tahiti, while sailing south to Antarctica. Although properly paying the rate from a French Colony to the United States, it did not need the foreign postage from an authorized US sea post office, nor did the mail need to be "paquebot" serviced. In addition, this cover bears the unusual variety (long killer bars) of the expedition pictorial cachet used aboard the S.S. CITY OF NEW YORK.
Crewmember mail from the sea post office aboard the second of the two First Byrd Antarctic Expedition ships S.S. ELEANOR BOLLING, bearing the distinctive expedition pictorial cachet used on Bolling mail together with the ship's strike, used as a "dumb" canceler, properly paying domestic USA rate from an
authorized maritime post office. This cover is canceled 19 December 1928 during its mission from New Zealand to tow the other expedition ship S.S. CITY OF NEW YORK toward Antarctica (for coal conservation purposes). The return address shows the frequently seen misspelled name of the vessel.

 

 First Byrd Antarctic Expedition (1928-30) primary ship sea post office cancellation (19 February 1930) is seen on this fully documented flight mail recording the first plane over the South Pole (28 November 1929). The mail was annotated but not canceled until S.S. CITY OF NEW YORK returned to retrieve the expedition in February 1930. Signed by Byrd, pilots June and Balchen and aerial photographer McKinley with the distinctive flight pictorial cachet.

Covers courtesy of the Harvis Collection

Visit the Byrd I, II, III Gallery to view additional covers.