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Cuando se instaló el primer observatorio en las islas Orcadas, en 1904, la delegación argentina que lo hizo posible llevaba entre sus integrantes a una persona designada por el Correo: Hugo Acuña. When the first observatory was installed at the Orcadas islands in 1904, the Argentine delegation –which made it possible– took with them a person designated by the Postal Service: Hugo Acuña.
When the first observatory was installed at the Orcadas islands in 1904, the Argentine delegation which made it possible took with them a person designated by the Postal Service: Hugo Acuña. The expedition set sail on board the Scotia on January 21st of that year. Acuña did not travel empty-handed: Together with his appointment he took a suitcase for mail, all the paperwork to allow him to administer his brand new Antarctic office, and the corresponding cancelling stamp to render useless the Argentine postage stamps which would be used in the postal pieces. The Acuña’s cancelling stamp awakened a literary restlessness in the Scotsman Robert Mossman, a meteorologist who took part in the expedition, and who dedicated him a chapter in his book “The voyage of the Scotia” published in Edinburgh in 1906. The author wrote when referring to Acuña: “…He had arrived bringing with him a postage seal and a suitcase for correspondence which contained books. For that reason, we named him the P.M.G. (Post-master General). Which were the first postal pieces? There were those sent by the expedition from Antarctica. It was the same vessel Scotia which took several letters and postcards. Those pieces, no doubt historical, are stamped with Argentine stamps, and made unusable by Acuña’s corresponding cancelling stamp, which reads: “Orcadas del Sud, District 24, Río Gallegos - February 20, 1904”. The Scotia arrived at Capetown, South Africa on May 5, 1904 and as the ship had no postal package neither the Antarctic mail had been sent in a special suitcase but by hand, it became necessary to stamp all the pieces there again, with seals belonging to that English colony. From then on, it arrived in Buenos Aires on June 5, 1904.