Pneumatic & Authorized
Pneumatic mail service was a neat and interesting innovation of its time. I describe it on the previous page. Almost all of the pneumatic stamps have the same design as the ones shown in the top set here. The two in the second set here have a different design, featuring Dante and Galileo. They’re much nicer, although I do like the standard design for pneumatics.
Private Mail Service
In the late 1920’s, there were apparently some businesses that started offering letter delivery services, competing with the Italian post office. Given the beauracratic and controlling nature of the Italian government, they did not like this and forbade it at first. As a compromise, they agreed to allow such private delivery services, providing the post office was given a cut. This was accomplished and verified with the inclusion of a special stamp: a Recapito Autorizzato, which is an archaic term for Authorized Delivery. Stanley-Gibbons’ Italy catalog translates it to mean, a Concessional Letter Postage stamp (i.e, the private company was given a concession to deliver mail).
The last three stamps on this page are Recapito Autorizzato stamps. Their face value, ten cents, is less than what the Italian post office charged. I find these stamps and other special stamps that Italy used to be interesting. Basically, these private companies were predecessors to Federal Express and these were the stamps they had to use.
Note
One of my priorities in purchases lately is to get all of the pneumatic stamps. I have all of them for this page. There are also a set of private delivery stamps at the bottom, but I’ve ordered them, recently. When I get them, this page will be complete.
Actually, I’ve stumbled into cheating a bit on this. Based on the subtle description of the first two on the first row (i.e., viola rosso and rosso, which mean purple pink and pink) they are Sassone catalog number should be PN12a and PN12b. I’ve definitely order PN12a for the first one, but for the second one, I seem to have PN12, which Sassone’s catalog says is lilla (i.e., lilac). I could just leave it in the book and ignore Leuchtturm’s description under it, figuring no one but me will notice. Or I could order the PN12b from a dealer and discard the PN12. This is all part of the fascination of stamp collecting, discerning and hunting for stamps.
Contains 8 spots: own 8 – 8 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 |
Pneumatic Mail
✓ |
PN12a |
Vittorio Emanuele III |
15c (sep 1921) |
||
✓ |
PN12 |
15c (feb 1928) |
|||
✓ |
PN13 |
35c (oct 1927) |
Historic Italians
✓ |
PN14 |
15c (mar 1933) |
|||
✓ |
PN15 |
35c (mar 1933) |
Private Delivery
✓ |
RA1 |
10c (jul 1928) |
|||
✓ |
RA2 |
10c (jul 1928) |
|||
✓ |
RA3 |
10c (jan 1930) |
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.
