Three stamps and a souvenir sheet were issued to commemorate 250 years since the Antarctic Circum¬navigation of Captain Cook in 1773.
The $1.20 value has the longitude and latitude of its first crossing on 17 January, 1773, which was at 66° 36' South, 39° 35' East.
One $2.40 value shows the chronometer made by Larcum Kendall that Cook used, which has come to be known as K1.  
The other $2.40 stamp shows a model of Cook’s ship HMS Resolution.
 

Originally published in Cook's Log, page 3, volume 46, number 4 (2023).

Image gallery (click on any one to enlarge it)

A 170F stamp was issued depicting a Tahitian costume of the chief mourner (Heva Tūpāpa`u), which was probably collected by Captain Cook in 1774.¹  On the stamp it is described as an ambassador object of Polynesian culture.  The object shown is currently on display in the new Museum of Tahiti and the Islands (Te Fare Manaha) exhibition hall until 2026.²  It is on loan from the British Museum,³ where it underwent restoration in 2018.⁴

On 7 May, 1774, Captain Cook at Matavai Bay, Tahiti, wrote, “In the afternoon [Otou] and the whole Royal Family (Viz) his Father, Brother and three Sisters with their attendants, made me a Viset on board [Resolution]; His Father made me a present of a compleat Mourning dress, curiosities we most valued, in return I gave him what ever he desired and distributed red feathers to all the others”.  These red feathers had been obtained by Cook at Tonga, during a visit there the previous October. 

George Forster, the naturalist and son of Johann Reinhold Forster, recorded on 28 April that “A single little feather was a valuable present, much superior to a bead or a nail... [The islanders offered] for sale those curious and singular mourning dresses, which are mentioned in captain Cook's first voyage, and which they would not part with on any account at that time.  These dresses being made of the rarest productions of their island, and of the surrounding sea, and being wrought with the greatest care and ingenuity, must of course bear a very considerable value among them.  A number of complete mourning dresses, not less than ten, were purchased by different persons on board, and brought to England.  Captain Cook has given one to the British Museum, and my father has had the honour of presenting another to the University of Oxford, now deposited in the Ashmolean Museum”.  The Forster gift is now at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.⁵

Ian Boreham

References

1. Coote, Jeremy.  “The Costume of the Chief Mourner” in Cook’s Log.  2022.  Vol. 45, no. 3.  Pages 14-15. 
2. www.museetahiti.pf/
3. British Museum Registration number Oc,TAH.78.
   https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/mourner-s-costume/SgFzAiEbV4klBw?hl=en
   www.bmimages.com/preview.asp?image=01613610807&itemw=4&itemf=0001&itemstep=1&itemx=37
4. www.britishmuseum.org/research/projects/reimagining-tahitian-mourners-costume
   www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3d8VroLRP8
5. Coote, Jeremy, Gathercole, Peter and Meister, Nicolette.  “‘Curiosities sent to Oxford’: the original documentation of the Forster collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum” in Journal of the History of Collections.  2000.  Vol. 12, no. 2.  Pages 177-192. 
   https://detoursdesmondes.typepad.com/dtours_des_mondes/2017/09/costume-de-deuilleur-pitt-rivers-18.html

Originally published in Cook's Log, page 3, volume 47, number 2 (2024).