Can anyone explain this postmark from somewhere in Alaska, USA? The sender doesn’t know anything about it, and it’s not a city or town. Just curious.
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Howdy- postmark collector here.
Sometimes the USPS names processing facilities different things to specify which location it is, like if an area has multiple distribution centers. I would suggest that the Alaskan Frontier just refers to a specific processing center that is not the one that typically says “Anchorage AK” on the postmark, but the 995-997 indicates that this facility is in the Anchorage area.
If you’d like more information about it, I can forward the image onward to my colleagues who specialize in Alaskan postmarks!
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I want to note that the USPS machine postmarks use the name of a Sectional Center Facility (SCF), but that not all SCFs have name corresponding to cities.
One of the largest SCFs (largest as of a few years ago, not sure about today) handles much of Southeast Michigan; it’s based in Pontiac, Michigan, and is just called “Metroplex MI” as opposed to being called “Pontiac” or “Metro Detroit”. (There is also a Detroit SCF that I thought had been merged into the Metroplex, but it seems like I was wrong and it still exists).
There’s a few others with strange names too. I think the larger SCFs actually tend to be more likely to have a name that doesn’t correspond to an obvious geography, and I think that that’s caused by several smaller SCFs being merged into larger ones.
I can’t find any mention of an “Alaskan Frontier” SCF online until a year ago, and that ZIP code range does correspond to the Anchorage SCF; there’s a chance that the Anchorage SCF was renamed for some reason recently (e.g. merging other Alaskan SCFs into it).
EDIT: Corrected details about Metroplex and Detroit SCFs.
EDIT 2: It seems like only 995-996 are Anchorage, while 997 is Fairbanks, but Fairbanks doesn’t have its own SCF anymore and uses Anchorage’s SCF. It seems like Fairbanks had its own SCF in the recent past. “Alaskan Frontier” might be a neutral name used to refer to an Anchorage + Fairbanks SCF merger.
EDIT 3: I found examples of the ALASKAN FRONTIER machine cancellation as old as 2019, and I also have reason to believe that the Fairbanks SCF might’ve existed as recently as 2017. “ALASKAN FRONTIER” might be an alias used by the combined Anchorage + Fairbanks SCF.
2019 ALASKAN FRONTIER postmark example: PARAPHILATELY & POSTMARKS: ALASKAN FRONTIER, Alaska, United States. Machine cancellation (2019)
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