General Colonial Stamps
From 1932 to 1934, the Italian post office decided not to issue unique stamps for each of the African colonies. Instead, they issued general stamp to be distributed and used in Eritrea, Somalia, as well as Cyrannaica and Tripolitania (i.e., Libya). This album contains those stamps.
The Dante Society
The fascists often invoked the name and writings of the Tuscan writer, Dante Alighieri. They saw him as their Isaiah: “a voice in the desert calling out, make way for the coming of the Lord”. Along those lines, in Dante’s famous book, The Divine Comedy, near the end of its second volume, Purgatory, the character Beatrice prophesies the coming of a savior. The fascists interpreted that as Benito Mussolini.
The Dante Alighieri Society was founded in 1889. Its purpose is “to promote the study of the Italian language and culture throughout the world.” The name of the society and their purpose were aligned enough with the fascists, despite the caveat in their mission statement that their purpose is “a purpose independent of political ideologies, national or ethnic origins or religious beliefs.” From what I can discern from my research, these stamps were not only meant to promote the works of Italian writers, but were in part a fund raiser for the Society.
Note
As you can see, I don’t yet have these stamps, the general issue ones for the Italian colonies. However, I do have them in my Italy Kingdom album – without the overprint. You can see them on the Historic Italians page. At the bottom of that page there is a table for the stamps and a second table that has some historical facts about each famous Italian depicted on these stamps.
Contains 12 spots: own 0 – 0 unused, 0 used.
Stamp Details
The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.
spot |
own |
catalog |
subject |
description |
comment |
Italians from History
11 |
10c (07 1932) |
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12 |
15c (07 1932) |
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13 |
20c (07 1932) |
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14 |
25c (07 1932) |
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15 |
30c (07 1932) |
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16 |
50c (07 1932) |
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17 |
75c (07 1932) |
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18 |
₤1.25 (07 1932) |
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19 |
₤1.75 (07 1932) |
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20 |
₤2.75 (07 1932) |
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21 |
₤5+2 (07 1932) |
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22 |
₤10+2.5 (07 1932) |
Footnotes
Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.
remaining stamps & stories in sub-album
page |
story |
note |
used |
need |
ordered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
12 |
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✓ |
1 |
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17 |
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16 |
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✓ |
18 |
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✓ |
1 |
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✓ |
12 |