Private

In the late 1920’s, there were apparently some businesses that started offering letter delivery services, competing with the Italian post office. Given the beauracratic and controlling nature of the Italian government, they did not like this and forbade it at first. As a compromise, they agreed to allow such private delivery services, providing the post office was given a cut. This was accomplished and verified with the inclusion of a special stamp: a Recapito Autorizzato, which is an archaic term for Authorized Delivery. Stanley-Gibbons’ Italy catalog translates it to mean, a Concessional Letter Postage stamp (i.e, the private company was given a concession to deliver mail).

The last three stamps on this page are Recapito Autorizzato stamps. Their face value, ten cents, is less than what the Italian post office charged. I find these stamps and other special stamps that Italy used to be interesting. Basically, these private companies were predecessors to Federal Express and these were the stamps they had to use.

Note

As you can see, I’m missing several of these postage-due stamps, although there weren’t many of them issued in this first batch. There are more postage-due stamps on the Postage Due page, including a more interesting set designed particularly for Libya.

Contains 19 spots: own 18 – 18 unused, 0 used.
Album or Web Page Last changed Jul 9, 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

Service Commission

1.1	✓	SC1	Servizio Commissioni	30c (nov 1915) services, red
1.2	✓	SC2	Servizio Commissioni	60c (nov 1915) services, orange & light brown
1.3	✓	SC3	Servizio Commissioni	90c (nov 1915) services, violet

Private Delivery

2.1	✓	RA1	Recapito autorizzato	10c (may 1929) special, blue
2.2	✓	RA2	Recapito autorizzato	10c (may 1929) special, blue
3.1	✓	RA3	Recapito Autorizzato	10c (may 1941) special, brown
3.2	✓	RA5	Silphium	10c (jan 1942) special, grey & brown
3.3	✓	RA4	Recapito Autorizzato	10c (jan 1942) special, brown

Postage Due - Overprints

4.1	✓	S1	Postage Due	5c (nov 1915) postage due, orange & carmine
4.2	✓	S2	Postage Due	10c (nov 1915) postage due, orange & carmine
4.3	✓	S3	Postage Due	20c (nov 1915) postage due, orange & carmine
4.4	✓	S4	Postage Due	30c (nov 1915) postage due, orange & carmine
5.1	✓	S5	Postage Due	40c (nov 1915) postage due, orange & carmine
5.2	✓	S6	Postage Due	50c (nov 1915) postage due, orange & carmine
5.3	✓	S7	Postage Due	60c (nov 1915) postage due, orange & carmine
5.4		S11	Postage Due	60c (may 1925) postage due, orange & brown
6.1	✓	S8	Postage Due	1₤ (nov 1915) postage due, blue & carmine
6.2	✓	S9	Postage Due	2₤ (nov 1915) postage due, blue & carmine
6.3	✓	S10	Postage Due	5₤ (nov 1915) postage due, blue & carmine

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.