Mazzini & Missions
The field of collecting and studying stamps, postcards, mailed letters, and other such things is called, philately. It’s the name of this sub-domain of dyerhouse.com. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Italian post office, along with post offies from many other countries, realized that there were stamp collectors and the like buying their products and expecting nothing in return. It became a great source of revenues for many countries: it was like someone coming into a restaurant you might own, order the most expensive thing on the menu, paying the bill before you can prepare the food, and leaving with that bill in a protective envelop to add to their collection. That’s a good analogy of stamp collecting. An analogy of philately is if he had a friend with him that asked if he could buy the paper menu because he collects those, and another friend who wants to take a match book with the restaurant name on it – and maybe the first friend asks if the chef would autograph the menu, and the seocnd asks if the owner of the restaurant would autograph the matchbook.
The first row of stamps are ones that were already in use, but were overprinted with text celebrating the 9th annual meeting of the Italian Philatelic Congress, this time in Trieste. I don’t have any of these stamps and may never have them since they are a little expensive In mint condition, they would cost over $1000.
50 Years since Mazzini’s Death
Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian politician and writer. He was significant leader in the movement that led to the unification of Italy, the basis for the war that Giuseppe Garibaldi fought to form the Kingdom of Italy. Mazzini was a influence on many political leaders over the century that followed him. For instance, he was an inspiration to the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in forming the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations.
The three stamps on the second row of the album page here are in memory the fiftieth anniversary of Mazzini’s death. You can see an image of him on the third one. I like how colorful these stamps are, as well as the four below them. It seems they’re improving their abilities in designing and printing stamps.
Vatican Missionaries
The four two-color stamps on the last two rows, depicting Jesus preaching to people, were to commemorate the three hundred year anniversary of the Sacred for the Propagation of the Faith. In Latin it’s called, Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. That’s sometimes shortened to Propaganda Fide. It’s an office or department of the Vatican that’s in charge of missionary work of the Catholic Church. That short name, as written on these stamps, can be misleading: it makes me think it says propaganda. But in the sense of propagation, meaning to spread a message, it’s not necessarily bad. I guess we use the Latin version, propaganda to me spreading skewed messages and philosophies. Perhaps to some people, that’s what Cathlic missionaries did when they came to their lands, spreading their perspective on reality.
The small images of in the top left and right corners are of famous saints like St. Dominic, St. Teresa of Ávila, St. Francis, and others. Their orders were famous for missionary work.
Note
Until recently, I was missing only the first row of stamps on this page, a set of four. Their previous definitives, overprinted with IX Congresso Filatelico Italiano, Trieste 1922 (i.e., Ninth Philatelic Italian Congress, Trieste 1922). Since there were so few of them issued one hundred years ago now, these stamps are rare. But given their nature, they were mostly bought by stamp collectors of the time. Other than ones used on commemorative postcards during the conference, the rest are probably almost all unused. Still, a set of unused ones are usually expensive. Fortunately, I was able to purchase set from a Ferrario auction as a more agreeable price. It feels good to complete this page. I now have over two-hundred fifty completed pages in my collection of Italian stamps.
Contains 11 spots: own 11 – 11 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Oct 2, 2023
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 |
9th Annual in Trieste
✓ |
123 |
10c (jun 1922) |
|||
✓ |
124 |
15c (jun 1922) |
|||
✓ |
125 |
25c (jun 1922) |
|||
✓ |
126 |
40c (jun 1922) |
50th Annv. of Mazzini’s Death
✓ |
128 |
25c (sep 1922) |
|||
✓ |
130 |
80c (sep 1922) |
|||
✓ |
129 |
40c (sep 1922) |
Missionary Office: 300 Years
✓ |
131 |
20c (jun 1923) |
|||
✓ |
132 |
30c (jun 1923) |
|||
✓ |
133 |
50c (jun 1923) |
|||
✓ |
134 |
1₤ (jun 1923) |
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.
