B.L.P.
In the early 1920s, the Italian post office conducted a program with Buste Lettere Postali (i.e., Postal Letter Envelops). It was a fund raiser for an agency called, the Federation of Assistance Committees for Blind, Crippled and Disabled Military.
This veterans agency would print envelops covered with advertisements, except for space to address the envelop, on the front and back. They would make money from advertisers – and perhaps from senders for the sale of the envelops. The envelop would be perforated to open it and reduce it to a return post card. You can see below a sample of one expanded side of these envelops.
Using these particular envelops allowed for the sender to use five cents less postage. To identify that they were taking advantage of this program, besides Busta Lettera Postale printed in large letters on the top front of the envelop, the sender was supposed to use at least one one stamp overprinted with the initials, BLP.
If you open the example image, you can see the text I mentioned and an explanation of the program in Italian. You can also see that this one has an advertisement for Sunlight Soap on the front panel, which supposedly is best for domestic use. On the reverse panel, is an advertisement for Cinzano and other busiensses. Notice the perforations for openning the envelop after received. There’s another perforation to remove a return post card on the backside. I don’t own one of these, so I can’t show you how that looks for this envelop.
Note
Most dealers in Milan don’t have these B.L.P. stamps – or they don’t have many. The few they do have are pricey: forty to a hundred euros for cheaper ones, with many costing a few hundred euros each.
I’ve been looking for them at auctions, but the starting prices aren’t very low and they all tend to sell for much higher prices. Recently, I managed to buy a few. It took me a couple of months to find them. So this page has gone from empty to sparse. I’m trying not to look at it too much, so it won’t bother me, until I get several more – which will probably take a year.
Contains 18 spots: own 9 – 9 unused, 0 used.
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 |
Overprint B.L.P
BLP1 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
10c (1921) |
|||
BLP2 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
20c (1921) |
|||
✓ |
BLP3 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
25c (1921) |
||
✓ |
BLP4 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
40c (1921) |
||
BLP5 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
10c (1921) |
philafer (€ 75) |
||
BLP6 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
15c (1921) |
|||
BLP7 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
20c (1921) |
|||
✓ |
BLP8 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
25c (1921) |
||
BLP9 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
40c (1921) |
|||
BLP10 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
50c (1921) |
|||
BLP11 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
60c (1922) |
|||
BLP12 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
1₤ (1922) |
|||
✓ |
BLP13 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
10c (1922) |
||
✓ |
BLP14 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
15c (1922) |
||
✓ |
BLP15 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
20c (1922) |
||
✓ |
BLP16 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
25c (1923) |
||
✓ |
BLP17 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
30c (1923) |
||
✓ |
BLP18 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
85c (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.
