Jubilees & Cruises

The first row of stamps here are for the military victory at Vittorio Veneto. I’ve described this event and the stamps on the Red Cross & Trieste of this album.

Still a Catholic Country

In the Judeo-Christian religions, a jubilee is a special year of remission of sins and universal pardon. In the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII called for a holy year and decreed that a jubilee would be celebrated every 25 or 50 years, along with extraordinary jubilees in the interim. Catholic jubilees generally involve pilgrimage to a sacred site, normally in Rome.

The last six stamps on this album page are in commemoration of the Holy Year, or Jubilee, of 1925 announced by Pope Pius XI. The stamps are of sites in Rome, the four papal basilicas: Basilica of Saint Mary Major; Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran; Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls; and St. Peter’s Basilica. I’ve been to all four of these basilicas in Rome. In fact, I has a chapter of my upcoming novel (i.e, The Pages of St. John) that is set inside Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

The last pair of stamps in this series relate to the Holy Door. Normally, these particular doors of St. Peter’s Basilica are cemented shut from the inside. They are openned at the start of a Jubilee and resealed at the end. It’s supposed to be symbolic of entering the gates of Heaven and being forgiven of sins (John 10:9 and Luke 11:9).

Italian Cruise to South America

In 1924, the steam ship Ferdinando Palasciano – originally named, König Albert – was renamed temporarily Italia and went on an eight-month cruise to South America to promote Italian made merchandise at an international trade show in South America. This was an idea of the Fascists, as part of their national pride agenda.

The stamps on the second and third rows here are definitives of the period, over printed with the words Crociera Italiana 1924 (i.e., Italian Cruise in English). I understand that overprinting definitive d stamps is easier and cheaper, but I wish they would have designed and printed stamps especially for this event. There was a neat poster of the time promoting the cruise. If they could do such an interesting and nice looking poster, they could have done special stamps for it. They could have just used the image from this poster.

These particular stamps are expensive because there weren’t many of them overprinted like this. They were sold only on the cruise ship going to South America. The ship being considered the sovereign territory of Italy at the time, the stamps were used for sending letters from aboard the ship. You would put one or more of the stamps on an envelop or a post card and put it in a mail box aboard and the crew would cancel the postage, and hand it to the postal authority at the next port or to another passing ship heading back to Italy.

Note

Although I didn’t think it would happen for a long time, I stumbled across some good deals on these stamps: especially the second set of overprinted definitives (i.e., rows two and three). Now this album page is complete. It’s nice. The previous couple of pages are complete, and the next thirty or so pages are also complete, except for one used stamp. That’s the kind of coverage for which I’ve been longing.

Contains 17 spots: own 17 – 17 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Oct 28, 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

Battle of Vittorio Veneto

1.1	✓	158	Angel Statue 5c Overprinted	1₤ (feb 1924) comm., green
1.2	✓	159	Angel Statue 10c Overprinted	1₤ (jan 1924) comm., red
1.3	✓	160	Angel Statue 15c Overprinted	1₤ (feb 1924) comm., grey
1.4	✓	161	Angel Statue 25c Overprinted	1₤ (feb 1924) comm., sky blue

Italian Cruise: South America

2.1	✓	162	Leoni Design Overprint, Italian Cruise	10c (feb 1924) comm., pink
2.2	✓	163	Michetti Design Overprint, Italian Cruise	30c (feb 1924) comm., orange
2.3	✓	164	Michetti Design Overprint, Italian Cruise	50c (feb 1924) comm., purple
2.4	✓	165	Michetti Design Overprint, Italian Cruise	60c (feb 1924) comm., sky blue
3.1	✓	166	Michetti Design Overprint, Italian Cruise	85c (feb 1924) comm., red
3.2	✓	167	Cellini Floral Overprint, Italian Cruise	1₤ (feb 1924) comm., green & brown
3.3	✓	168	Cellini Floral Overprint, Italian Cruise	2₤ (feb 1924) comm., orange & black

Holy Year

4.1	✓	169	St. Mary Major	20+10c (dec 1924) semi-postal, sky blue
4.2	✓	170	St. John Lateran	30+15c (dec 1924) semi-postal, brown
4.3	✓	171	St. Paul Outside the Walls	50+25c (dec 1924) semi-postal, purple
5.1	✓	172	St. Peter’s Basilica	60+30c (dec 1924) semi-postal, pink
5.2	✓	173	Opening the Holy Door	1+0.50₤ (dec 1924) semi-postal, sky blue
5.3	✓	174	Closing of the Holy Door	5+2.50₤ (dec 1924) semi-postal, red

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.