Pneumatic

Pneumatic mail was an interesting innovative system to improve the speed of mail delivery. It used a system of pneumatic tubes in Rome, Milan, and Naples. There were special mail boxes designated for sending pneumatic mail. They were emptied several times a day by mail carriers and brought to the nearest post office – one that had a pneumtic tube terminal.

Pneumatic mail were sorted and put into the appropriate pneumatic tube carrier, the one that would terminate at the post office closest to the mail’s destination. On that end, a mail carrier would take the letter and hand-deliver it using a bicycle to the recipient’s address. The Italian post office has a video on YouTube showing this process.

Private Delivery

There were businesses that offered letter delivery services, competing with the Italian post office (i.e., the predecessors to Federal Express). Given the beauracratic and controlling nature of the Italian government, they didn’t 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. The bottom three rows of stamps on this page are these type of stamps.

Note

The Kingdom had stamps like these for private delivery, except they were smaller and more official looking (see the Pneumatic & Authorized page). I like the look and size of those better.

Contains 12 spots: own 12 – 12 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Mar 2, 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

Pneumatic Mail

1.1	✓	PN18	Head of Minerva	3₤ (nov 1947) pneumatic, lilac
1.2	✓	PN19	Head of Minerva	5₤ (nov 1947) pneumatic, aquamarine
1.3	✓	PN20	Head of Minerva	10₤ (jan 1958) pneumatic, pink red
1.4	✓	PN21	Head of Minerva	20₤ (mar 1966) pneumatic, sapphire

Private Delivery

2.1	✓	RA10	Italia Turreted	15₤ (jul 1949) pvt. del., violet
2.2	✓	RA8	Italia Turreted	1₤ (jun 1947) pvt. del., bluish green
2.3	✓	RA9	Italia Turreted	8₤ (nov 1947) pvt. del., red
2.4	✓	RA11	Italia Turreted	20₤ (feb 1952) pvt. del., lilac
3.1	✓	RA12	Italia Turreted	20₤ (oct 1955) pvt. del., lilac
3.2	✓	RA13	Italia Turreted	30₤ (oct 1965) pvt. del., green
3.3	✓	RA14	Italia Turreted	35₤ (may 1974) pvt. del., dark orange brown
4.1	✓	RA15	Italia Turreted	110₤ (jun 1977) pvt. del., blue

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.