Fonopost, or Phonopost, was an experimental postal service in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

to record a person's voice and deliver the resulting recording by mail.Patrick, Douglas & Mary. ''The Hodder Stamp Dictionary'', Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1973, p.89. . The service was demonstrated at the

Postal Union Congress The Postal Union Congress is the main international meeting of the Universal Postal Union, used to discuss various issues affecting international postal services, such as legislation, the political climate, and other strategic issues. The first con ...

in Buenos Aires in 1939 and later the Argentine Post Office issued three stamps to mail the records. Special mobile recording vans were used to make the recordings which used 8 inch 78 rpm

acetate An acetate is a salt formed by the combination of acetic acid with a base (e.g. alkaline, earthy, metallic, nonmetallic, or radical base). "Acetate" also describes the conjugate base or ion (specifically, the negatively charged ion called ...

gramophone A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physic ...

records. As a service approved by the

Universal Postal Union The Universal Postal Union (UPU, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations and facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system. It has 192 member states and is headquartered in Be ...

, Fonopost was not restricted just to Argentina. The

Museum voor Communicatie A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers ...

in The Netherlands has a Fonopost unit with recordings that was used in postal offices from 1937 to 1939 mainly to provide people with the opportunity to send spoken messages to relatives in the Dutch East Indies. The approved status of Fonopost was removed at the Tokyo U.P.U. congress in 1969."The Evolution of the Postal Service in the Era of the UPU" by Jamie Gough in ''

The London Philatelist ''The London Philatelist'' was first published in January 1892
by Correo Argentino The Official Post Service of the Argentine Republic (, mostly known as Correo Argentino since it was privatized in 1997) is the state-owned company that covers the postal service in Argentina. The company is a S.A. under the country's Office of ...

References

{{Reflist History of sound recording Postal history Philately of Argentina Postal services

Further reading

References