Vittorio Emanuele III

As part of his empire building plans, the King of Italy focused on establishing colonies in uncolonized parts of North East Africa, from the Mediterranean coast to the Horn of Africa. The regions of Libya were of particular interest to his plans since they were so close to Italy.

When Italy began colonizing the area in 1911, there was no country of Libya. The word Libya – or Libia in Italian – was used to refer to a geographical area composed of a unique people, the Berbers, who lived there for about four thousand years. At the start of the Twentieth Century, there were two main, somewhat organized regions: Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. There were also neighhboring territories where Italy took military control: Fezzan and adjacent territories (e.g., the Aouzou_Strip, now part of Chad).

In the 1930, the pilot and Minister of the Italian Air Force, Italo Balbo was appointed governor of Libya. To reduce high unemployment and overpopulation in Italy, he organized the transporting of many Italians into Libya. This had the added benefit of solidifying their hold on the colony. By 1940, Balbo had organized the transporting of over one-hundred ten thousand Italians to Libya, which was about twenty-percent of its population at the time.

Note

When I first designed this album, I wasn’t sure what it should contain. First, there was the confusion as to what belongs in the Libya album and what belongs in the Tripolitania and Cyrenaica albums. From that there was the catalog numbering differences I have with Sassone. Then there was the general struggle to determine all of the stamps, what are their sizes, recognize the subtle differences among reprints (e.g., different perforations), and how to best place them in the album – which stamps on which pages, which stamps look best together without deviating too much from the ordering by catalog numbers and order pages by years, as best as I can. I rarely get it right or do it best the first try in designing an album. This one was especially difficult.

Now that I have most of the stamps for this album, I have a better understanding of what it contains and what it should contain. So far, I realized I was missing one stamp, and had stamps of one set mixed with another and pages apart. So I recently redesigned the first six pages of this album. I may do more pages later. The page labels at the bottom right corner are a little off, especially because I consolidated two pages: there’s no longer a page LY-8. Also, I moved page LY-3 to further back in the album since it contains postage due stamps. To keep my sanity, I added the catalog number to the frame for each stamp on the new pages. That was very helpful. I may do that on all new album pages I design.

Contains 16 spots: own 11 – 10 unused, 1 used.
Album or Web Page Last changed Feb 5, 2025

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

Savoy Emblem

1.1		1	Savoy Crest	1c (nov 1915) definitive, dark brown
1.2	✓	2	Savoy Crest	2c (dec 1912) definitive, dark brown red

Leoni Design

2.1		3	Vittorio Emanuele III	5c (dec 1912) definitive, yellow green
2.2	✓	4	Vittorio Emanuele III	10c (dec 1912) definitive, brown rose

Michetti Design

2.3	✓	5	Vittorio Emanuele III	15c (dec 1912) definitive, slate
3.1	✗	7	Vittorio Emanuele III	25c (dec 1912) definitive, blue
3.2	✓	8	Vittorio Emanuele III	40c (dec 1912) definitive, brown
3.3		9	Vittorio Emanuele III	50c (dec 1912) definitive, light violet
3.4	✓	19	Vittorio Emanuele III	60c (aug 1918) definitive, carmine
4.1	✓	17	Vittorio Emanuele III	20c (mar 1916) definitive, slate
4.2	✓	20	Vittorio Emanuele III	20c (jul 1918) definitive, brown orange

Cellini Design

5.1	✓	6	Vittorio Emanuele III Cellini Design	20c (nov 1915) definitive, orange
5.2	✓	18	Vittorio Emanuele III Cellini Design	45c (apr 1917) definitive, olive
6.1	✓	10	Vittorio Emanuele III Cellini Design	1₤ (dec 1915) definitive, green & brown
6.2		11	Vittorio Emanuele III Cellini Design	5₤ (dec 1915) definitive, pink & sky blue
6.3		12	Vittorio Emanuele III Cellini Design	10₤ (dec 1915) definitive, olive & pink

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.