Soccer

These stamps are related to the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) football championships – known as soccer in the U.S. The first FIFA World Cup championship was played in Uruguay in 1930 since they were the then current Olympic champions and they were one of the countries who bid to host the games, and the other bidders dropped their bids by the time the decision was made. Italy and most of European countries didn’t compete that year because it was too far from Europe. The following championship was in 1934 – they’re held every four years – was held in Italy.

These stamps commemorate the 1934 FIFA World Cup, which was played by many more teams, especially from Europe, in several cities in Italy. This was when Benito Mussolini was at the height of his power and when he was promoting fascism and the concept of an ideal race of people, a notion copied by Adolf Hitler. In his mind, it only made sense that Italians should succeed and show the world they had the best athletes. It has been speculated that he manipulated the situation to assist Italy to become the winners of the championship. Supposedly under his instruction, the Italian players were excessively violent towards the opposing players. They say Mussolini picked the referees and bribed many of them so as not to stop or penalize Italian players for their abusive actions. Still, at the following tournament in 1938, held in France, Italy was again the winner without Mussolini’s assistance.

Note

I’m not too pleased with how I have these stamps arranged on the page. I may change the design, but I’m not sure of what would be a better layout. I am pleased that I have all of them, though.

Contains 9 spots: own 9 – 9 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Jan 22, 2024

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

Football & Soccer

1.1	✓	76	Kicking Ball	25c (jun 1934) comm., green
1.2	✓	75	Goalie Save	20c (jun 1934) comm., violet brown
2.1	✓	77	Kicking Ball	50c (jun 1934) comm., violet
2.2	✓	78	Two-Player Skirmish	1.25₤ (jun 1934) comm., blue
2.3	✓	79	Two Players Jostling	5+2.50₤ (jun 1934) comm., dark blue

Air Mail

3.1	✓	A34	Torino Stadium & Airplane	50c (jun 1934) comm., brown
3.2	✓	A35	Player & Seaplane	75c (jun 1934) comm., carmine
3.3	✓	A37	Bologna Stadium & Airplane	10+5₤ (jun 1934) comm., green
4.1	✓	A36	Florence Stadium & Airplane	5+2.50₤ (jun 1934) comm., red orange

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.