Vittorio Emanuele II
❦ Priority Page ❦
Before the nation of Italy was formed, there were stamps offered by the Kingdom of Sardinia. Since the king of Sardinia, Vittorio Emanuele II became king of the Kingdom of Italy, the design for the stamps from Sardinia were used for the stamps of the new kingdom.
On this page, you can see that the stamps were not perforated. Perforated means that the printed stamp pages are pierced with holes to make tearing them apart easier. At this time, instead, stamps were cut typically by postal workers one at a time with scissors or by some similar method. For more on perforation, see my Stamp Perforations video.
The set of stamps on the top row have different colors for different values, but use the same embossed silhouette image of the king. Although it’s not very easy to see the image, they thought that embossing would make it more difficult for print shops to counterfeit. They soon gave up on that idea, as you can see from the two stamps on the third row. Those stamps are new designs.
The single stamp on the second row is embossed with a floral number two – for two cents. This stamp was used as to pay the tax on newspapers. I’m not sure if it was for mailing newspapers or just a tax on all newspapers, regardless of how it’s delivered or who delivers it.
Note
This album page wasn’t designed or printed by Leuchtturm, unlike the pages that follow. The original page had stamps from Sardegna (i.e., Sardinia) from prior to the founding of the Kingdom of Italy. I moved them to my Sardegna page, in the Pre-Unification album. Using Adobe Photoshop and blank pages from Leuchtturm, I created a new layout for the stamps shown here and printed it myself.
Those stamps, I believe, were originally miscategorized as part of the stamps from the Kingdom of Italy, from the new nation for use throughout the kingdom. As such, Sassone – an authority and publisher of Italian stamp catalogs – gave these stamps catalog numbers 5 to 9. Years later, when Sassone realized they were printed in Naples and were issued and used only in that occupied territory under Giuseppe Garibaldi’s control, they removed them from their Kingdom of Italy catalog. However, they didn’t renumber all of the stamps that followed: that would be much more confusing. As a reult, there’s a gap in the catalog numbers. See the Sardegna page for more on this.
The first stamp on the first row here is used. I prefer to have all unused stamps, but this one is expensive unless it’s used – over one-thousand euros. I bought this one from an auction for less than one-hundred euros. The cancelation-mark doesn’t obscure the stamp too much. What irks me the most is having the first stamp of this album used. Maybe one day I’ll get an unused one to replace it.
Contains 8 spots: own 8 – 7 unused, 1 used.
Page is full, but not yet finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Apr 6, 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 |
Vittorio Emanuele II - Embossed
◎ |
1 |
10c (feb 1861) |
|||
✓ |
2 |
20c (mar 1862) |
|||
✓ |
3 |
40c (apr 1862) |
|||
✓ |
4 |
80c (oct 1862) |
Adorned Numbers
✓ |
10 |
2c (may 1862) |
Vittorio Emanuele II - Matraire
✓ |
12 |
15c (feb 1863) |
|||
✓ |
13 |
15c (apr 1863) |
Vittorio Emanuele II - Ferraris
✓ |
11 |
15c (mar 1863) |
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.
remaining stamps & stories in sub-album
page |
story |
note |
used |
need |
ordered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
✓ |
✓ |
1° |
|||
✓ |
✓ |
5 |
7 |
||
✓ |
✓ |
3 |
3 |
