Ascension Island

Ascension Island History & Postal History

The first settlers on Ascension were British soldiers sent there during Napoleon's exile on St Helena. Today, Ascension Island is perhaps best known for its British and American military presence largely involved with satellite tracking and communications. Being one of the few Atlantic islands with an airport, Ascension regularly sees military aircraft from the UK, United States, Falkland Islands and Brazil passing through. Following the Argentine invasion of the Falklands in 1982, Ascension Island and the airport played a key role as a naval staging post and airborne supply airfield for British liberation forces.

Ascension Island's first postage stamps were issued in 1912 using overprinted St Helena stamps and the first unique stamps weren't issued until 1924. Before 1912 British stamps were commonly used on correspondence from Ascension. Until the 1860s most of the mail was naval and cancelled on arrival in the UK but, from then on, a number of single ring and hooded Ascension postmarks came in to use locally. Victorian and Edwardian covers bearing these marks are much sought after by collectors.

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More Ascension Island Links from the Web

Ascension Islands Stamps Marketplace - Buy & Sell Online on free ...
Ascension island Stamps Buy/Sell/Auction/Trade Marketplace for Buying, Selling Ascension Stamps, TradingCollectible Ascension Postal History, FDC.
http://www.atoncer.com/stamps/afric...

KGVI Stamps of Ascension
Descprition of the characteristics of the stamps that make up the Ascension set of 1938.
http://www.kgvistamps.com/articles/...

Ascension Stamps - AtoZee - The Complete Web Resource for ...
Stamps and postal history of Ascension - information ... from the three islands of St Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha. Books for Collectors of Ascension Stamps
http://www.atozee.com/web/stamps/co...

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