State & Comune
These stamps were used by regional government and municipal agencies for documents and postage – at least that’s the most I’ve been able to determine so far. There’s not much written on them on the internet. I suspect they’re discussed and explained in specialized postal history books written in Italian, but I don’t have access to such books and don’t read Italian very well.
These stamps were repurposed in 1878, three years after they were first issued. From what I could determine, they printed too many of these various values of specialty stamps, and had a need for more ordinary postage. Their face amounts were overprinted, crossing through their original value and changed to two cents. You can see them on the page containing Repurposing stamps.
Unique Air Mail
During the 1930s, there were two special air mail stamps issued for use by municipalities. One commemorated the flight of the Italian Air Armada around Europe, across the Atlantic to North America, and back to Rome. Actually, it’s three stamps sold together. Each tri-stamp was overprinted with the name of the aircraft from where it was used. There was one tri-stamp that was instead overprinted with the words, Servizio di Stato (i.e., State Service). I’m not sure who used these. Perhaps they were used by the pilots and crew aboard the planes during the journey. There were 200,000 printed for public use. For these, though, there were only 5,000. So, they’re now much rarer and the price is therefore much higher.
I don’t have one of these stamps, but I do have two of the public ones. You can see them and learn more about these particular stamps on Page 32.
The other air mail stamp on this page commemorates the start of flights from Rome to Mogadishu in November 1935. The significance of this was that it connected Italy with Somalia, one of the colonies in North Africa, the start of the Italian empire. You can see more about this stamp and others like it, but ones that were for public use, on Page 37 – I have those stamps.
Note
These stamps with just the numeric amount of postage are a little drab compared to some of the others. I do like that the scrolling on each is different. They didn’t use the same design for each value. Given its drabness, this wasn’t a high priority page for me, but I managed to replace the used ones I had to complete the first two rows.
The other two stamps that I don’t have on this page, though, are expensive. The single one at the bottom isn’t too pricey, and I have seen them for sale – just not at a good price, not even at an auction. The triple wide one can cost from one to two thousand euros. But, as I mentioned above, I have already two very similar ones on Page 32. Those two were about a hundred euros each. I wish I could get this one for close to the same price.
Contains 10 spots: own 8 – 8 unused, 0 used.
Album or Web Page Last changed Apr 21, 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 |
State & Comune
✓ |
SE1 |
0,02₤ (jan 1875) |
|||
✓ |
SE2 |
0,05₤ (jan 1875) |
|||
✓ |
SE3 |
0.20₤ (jan 1875) |
|||
✓ |
SE4 |
0.30₤ (jan 1875) |
|||
✓ |
SE5 |
1₤ (jan 1875) |
|||
✓ |
SE6 |
2₤ (jan 1875) |
|||
✓ |
SE7 |
5₤ (jan 1875) |
|||
✓ |
SE8 |
10₤ (jan 1875) |
Official Mail (Servizio di Stato)
SA1 |
Flag - King - Flight |
5.25+44.75₤ (may 1933) |
tuscanphila (€ 1750) |
||
SA2 |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
10₤ (nov 1934) |
meloni (€ 325) |
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.
