For All You Italy (I Think) Collectors...

As far as I can tell it's from Italy...anyone know the story of it? I'm only dealing with US stamps right now, so I'm not sure myself.




Thanks in advance for any info.

Peace,
Chad

Hi chadn, This is a Fiume stamp, Scott# 164. My 2006 catalog value is .85 cents. The stamp was issued for the Second Constituent Assembly in 1922. Fiume was part of Italy back then, hope this helps!!

Not Italy but Fiume. 1922 second constituent assembly. I don't have a recent WW Scotts but was cat no 164 (at least in 1960 edition).

Hello chadn,
as for the history of Fiume,
you can refer to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_of_Fiume

Ciao Chadn,
this stamp was issued on the 12 apr. 1922, with overprinted "24- IV-1921 Costituente Fiumana 1922", perforation 11,5 valid until 31 dec 1932, Italian catalog Unificato Fiume 167, 2011 value 4 Euro mnh

Ciao
Max

Thanks for the info everyone--

I've never really heard of Fiume before and the faint "italia" next to the 1922 overprint made me think Italy. Anyway--pretty interesting reading on wiki, heinz--it just makes the hobby that much more interesting learning about new places.

You guys also said it was issued for the Second Constituent Assembly--would this be like their equivalent of our Official (O1-O162) government stamps?

And it just seems weird that this was the only one like this mixed with a bunch of US stamps I acquired.

Peace,
Chad

Hi chadn, if this was an official stamp it would have the same prefix of O as U.S. stamps. I don't know Italian, but for a guess I would think the stamp was issued for the second meeting of their assembly. This stamp was also issued in 1921 for their first meeting, hence the top overprint.This design was first issued as a semi-postal #B7 in 1919. Hope this helps!

Ciao Chadn and Tongman, also if i'm italian i'm not a specialist in this area, however I can confirm you that such stamp was an official ones. During the period of both WW there was italian area under special regime, and one of this was Fiume, and such area was authorized to issue their own stamps, most of the time the stamps was Italian stamps overprinted with the name of such area.

Hi, of course the stamp was officially issued, but as ordinary postage.I'm sure if that Scott's determined it was for Official mail purposes it would be listed with the O prefix.Maybe we are just caught up with semantics?

Ciao Tongman, you are right, when I wrote "official" I was meaning that the use was for ordinary postage.

Any idea why Stanley Gibbons gives this a catalogue vallue of "00" ?

Thanks

(SG636 1944)

SG SOTW 2011 says 75p (mint) and 20p (used).

Thanks 22c