Italy in Transition
The King of Italy, on behalf of the Kingdom, surrendered in 1943 to Allied Forces. However, the Germans with Mussolini controled the northern part of Italy. The war would end in 1945 and the king would abdicate his throne in May 1946. The new king, Umberto II would reign for little more than a month before he abolished the monarchy in favor of a republic.
During these transition years, from 1943 to 1945 and maybe as late as 1947, the governments in place in Italy continued to issue stamps. Most of them were stamps printed previously, but overprinted with text declaring them for use by the Socialist Republic of Italy (i.e., R.S.I., the Mussolini and German government in the north) or by the Lieutenancy, the Kingdom under the temporary control of Prince Umberto until he became king. Some were issued by local municipalities to handle postage until the government could be stabilized.
Note
Most of these album pages are complete. There are a few pages in which I’m missing stamps: air mail stamps, parcel posts, and some postage due stamps. Those that are remaining aren’t particularly expensive. They’re just difficult to find. Plus, they haven’t been a priority for me, lately.
Album Pages
To the right is a list of all of the pages in this album, for the stamps of this period, starting in 1943 until the end of the monarchy in 1946. For previous years, see the previous album. Years after that will be covered in the Republic album. They’re in the order in which they appear in my album, which is basically in date order.
On each web page is a scanned image of a page from my stamp album, showing the stamps I own. You may click on that image to see a larger version. There will eventually be on those pages some comments about the stamps. For now, there is only placeholder text, Lorem ipsum text.
Below all of that is a table listing the stamps, ordered and numbered based on the rows and spots where the stamps are positioned on the album page – in the scanned image. It includes the ones I don’t yet own. Each listing has a brief description of the stamp and its catalog number from three popular catalogs. If you want to see more information on a particular stamp or a larger color image of it, click on the name of the stamp in the table and you’ll be taken to the corresponding page on Colnect’s site.
remaining stamps & stories in sub-album
page |
story |
note |
used |
need |
ordered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Main Page (Socialist Republic) |
✓ |
✓ |
2 |
||
Parcel Post (Socialist Republic) |
✓ |
✓ |
3 |
||
Postage Due (Socialist Republic) |
✓ |
✓ |
2 |
||
Main Page (Natl. Republican Guard) |
✓ |
✓ |
2° |
||
Air Mail (Natl. Republican Guard) |
✓ |
✓ |
3 |