Fate Of An Unisssued Stamp From San Marino

Recently while going through a large collection of old stamps I found one from San Marino that grabbed my attention. It had been issued to commemorate '20 years of fascism.' I was intrigued by this and further intrigued when I found that it wasn't listed in Gibbons online catalogue. This led me to do some research and this is what I found:

The stamp is Scott# 216 (= Sassone 241) and officially it was never issued. 'In 1943,' explains William Silvester, 'San Marino had been about to issue a set of stamps to commemorate Fascism's beginnings when a change in the political climate demanded a change in plan. They had prepared a set of 13 regular issue and 8 airmail stamps to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Fascist Party but instead, with the fall of Mussolini the government thought it prudent to overprint the stamps to commemorate the downfall of fascism.'

The stamp was only ever officially issued with the original inscription blocked out with horizontal bars and overprints added. There were two separate issues with overprints: (1) 28 LVGLIO 1943 1642 d. F.R. (SG 267-287) and (2) GOVERNO PROVISSORIO (SG 288-304).

Oddly enough, the original stamp is worth no more than the officially released stamps, in other words, nothing. I would have thought that the original stamp - that is, the stamp without either of the overprints - would have been a fairly desirable item, if not a great rarity.

This makes me wonder how an unissued stamp became so common. Does anyone know the story of how the original stamp entered circulation in (apparently) such numbers as to become one of the great many stamps which are essentially worthless?



Also, does anyone know of similar cases of other never officially issued stamps?

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

Interesting story. I've no idea how so many unissued stamps would have gotten out, unless they were sold later to try to recoup some of the fees in their printing.

What I'm curious about is the fact that there is a Scott # for an unissued stamp. My understanding was that if it wasn't an officially issued stamp, from a recognized country, then it was not listed by Scott.

Regarding the Scott number, well I got this from someone selling the stamp on Delcampe.com

The seller might have made a mistake; not being able to find it in the catalogue, s/he might have used the number of the equivalent issue with overprint.

Another seller of the same stamp gave a Sassone number, but I can't verify that either.

The original stamp isn't listed in Scott but in a footnote in the 2009 edition they give a price of $55 for the complete set of 21 without the overprint.

Scott #216 has the overprint.

This series was not issued for the reasons mentioned above but some collectors have assigned arbitrarily "_1" to the Scott #'s that start with 216.
So 216 becomes 216_1.
I have done that with the software program I use.
As I also use the Sassone #'s things are a bit easier.
CHO10
Milan, Italy

This is slightly off topic but ages ago when I began stamp collecting (1950s) I read somewhere that San Marino was unusual in that they issued airmail stamps while the country had NO AIRPORT! Can anyone verify that this was true? I looked on Googlemaps recently and it appears that they do now have one.

I also asked this question in one of my older posts, the airmail from San Martino appears to be tranported most of the time by nearby Rimini airport. Probably also the airport you are refering to. They do not have room for an airport in San Marino. Unless the push a hangglider down the hill.

Hi,
San Marino is a small enclave located on top of a hill not far from Rimini (about 10 miles away) on the Adriatic coast. Rimini (which is in Italy) does have an airport named Rimini-Miramare Federico Fellini. San Marino bought a 3% share of that airport so technically it now has its own airport. San Marino is the world's oldest republic dating back to 301 A.D. Its main sources of revenue are tourism, collector stamps and coins. You are correct about the nonsense of issuing airmail stamps and not having an airport. This was true through the 1950's. The airport was solely for military use after WWII. Civil flights started in 1958.
CHO10
Milan, Italy

JIM ---There are many stamps that never were official issued ,but found there way into the collector market . I think I have a few hundred that would qualify.

Changes in governments happen all the time and the designers and printers are a lot slower than Rebels,politicians and invading armies .

This stamp, and indeed the series from which it is taken, are given full catalogue status in Sassone, the main Italian catalogue. They are marked as "Non emessi" (not issued) but the catalogue then goes on to explain the circumstances, and point out that 11,000 sets were sold to collectors. Here is the note as it appears in the catalogue and the translation from Google Translate.

In seguito alla caduta del facismo questifrancobolli no venero consegnati aglisportelli per la vendita ma furono in un primo tempo messi da parte e, successivamente, soprastampati per commemorare la data del 28 luglio (serie seguente). Circa 11,000 serie complete vennero però lasciate senza soprastampa e furono cedute, tre anni dopo, per collezione.

Following the fall of facism these stamps were not delivered to the branches for sale but were initially set aside and subsequently overprinted to commemorate the date of July 28 (see the following series). However, around 11,000 complete sets were left without overprinting and were sold three years later to collectors.

It would appear the "selling to collectors" was sufficient for the editors to include it in the catalogue. The stamp is priced only for mint copies but I have shown below a used one; whether the stamp saw legitimate use is doubtful, although possible in light of the story above. The catalogue prices for mint copies are fairly low.

The Bolaffi and CEI catalogues do the same as Sassone, giving it full status and a "Not issued" note.