Football Championship

These stamps are related to the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) football championships – known as soccer in the U.S. The first FIFA World Cup championship was played in Uruguay in 1930 since they were the then current Olympic champions and they were one of the countries who bid to host the games, and the other bidders dropped their bids by the time the decision was made. Italy and most of European countries didn’t compete that year because it was too far from Europe. The following championship was in 1934 – they’re held every four years – was held in Italy.

These stamps commemorate the 1934 FIFA World Cup, which was played by many more teams, especially from Europe, in several cities in Italy. This was when Benito Mussolini was at the height of his power and when he was promoting fascism and the concept of an ideal race of people, a notion copied by Adolf Hitler. In his mind, it only made sense that Italians should succeed and show the world they had the best athletes. It has been speculated that he manipulated the situation to assist Italy to become the winners of the championship. Supposedly under his instruction, the Italian players were excessively violent towards the opposing players. They say Mussolini picked the referees and bribed many of them so as not to stop or penalize Italian players for their abusive actions. Still, at the following tournament in 1938, held in France, Italy was again the winner without Mussolini’s assistance.

Note

This page is composed of two sets of stamps in a related series: a set of five commemorative stamps for ordinary postage use, and a set of four commemorative air mail stamps. It was the last empty page I had in this album, but it’s now complete. I found a dealer that had a set of all of them at a price I could afford. I’m glad to have it finished.

Contains 9 spots: own 9 – 9 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Dec 6, 2022

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

Football & Soccer

1.1	✓	357	Goalie Save	20c (may 1934) comm., orange
1.2	✓	361	Soccer	5+2.50₤ (may 1934) semi-postal, sepia
2.1	✓	358	Kicking Ball	25c (may 1934) comm., green
2.2	✓	359	Kicking Ball	50c (may 1934) comm., violet
2.3	✓	360	Kicking Ball	1.25₤ (may 1934) comm., sky blue

Air Mail

3.1	✓	A69	Torino Stadium & Airplane	50c (may 1934) air mail, red
3.2	✓	A71	Florence Stadium & Airplane	5+2.50₤ (may 1934) air mail, green
4.1	✓	A70	Player & Seaplane	75c (may 1934) air mail, grey
4.2	✓	A72	Bologna Stadium & Airplane	10+5₤ (may 1934) air mail, grey

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.