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first issues > countries > italy > italian offices abroad

Italian Offices Abroad

starting 1st January 1874

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See also British Offices - French Offices - German Offices - Spanish Offices

Italian Offices Abroad #

General issue - Africa - China - Crete -

ItOfGen
  SG1-9  

perf 14, crown wmk

Description Date Scott SG Mi Y&T  
Italian stamps of 1863-72 altered and overprinted
1 centesimi olive green   1 1      
2c orange-brown   2 2      
5c slate green   3 3      
10c buff   4 4      
10c blue 1879 5 10      
20 blue   6 5      
20c orange 1878 7 11      
30c brown   8 6      
40c rose   9 7      
60c lilac   10 8      
2 lire vermilion   11 9      

Date of issue, where not 1874.

The catalogues state that these are the Italian stamps of 1863-72, "with corner designs slightly altered" (Scott [1] ) or "modified corners" (Gibbons [2]). Gibbons lists nine issues in its first set, illustrated above, while Scott includes two 1878/79 issues to make eleven. Most of the values have suffixed design variants (e.g. Sc1c, SG1b, "two square dots in lower right corner") that are outside the scope of this exercise.

Scott describes the stamps as used in "Italian Post Offices which, for various reasons, were maintained from time to time in foreign countries" Gibbons is rather more specific, listing them under Italian Post offices in the Turkish Empire and provides considerable detail on their use.


Italian Offices in China
image
Peking
Tientsin
1917 Sc1 SG1 text

China

For both the Italian stamps, the initial sets (September 1917) were hand-stamped locally and later sets (December 1917) overprinted mechanically in Italy. The first sets are expensive (the Peking stamps range from $200 to $260,000).


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Office 3