Any Good Tips For Starting An Italy Collection?

I've bought so many collections over the years for the US Stamps and have amassed a lot of early through the 80s stamps from Italy in them. Since my US collection is about as complete as it will be without spending a fortune, I need a new country to keep me busy. Just due to the mass quantities of stamps I've accumulated, I've picked Italy.

Last night,I resubscribed to Steiner and downloaded all the pages up to 1993, punched the holes and put them in 3 Lighthouse binders.

Tonight I'll start sorting and getting them put in to the album.

I'm excited to start a new country but I know nothing about it :)

Is there any big varieties to look for, really difficult to identify stamps, forgeries to watch out for, or any other tips that someone could give me?

I'm sure I'll have many more questions ahead but any tips to help me get started would be much appreciated.

thanks

Mike, I recently decided to do the same thing and started by buying a collection. Although I'm also new to collecting Italy, I have two observations at this point. The first is that the early period 1850-1945 is a challenge because of the many political changes that the country went through. First it was a collection of states, then unified in 1871, then part of it was a Nazi puppet (the Italian Social Republic of Mussolini), then a democratic state. Each stage has different stamps issues. It also held colonies overseas and issued stamps for them. So your first challenge is whether to include that fractured period.

Second, if you decide to deal with the 1850-1871 period, you should assume that any Italian State material you run across is a forgery until proven otherwise. The issues of Tuscany, Naples and Sicily (which had only a single independent issue in 1859) are widely forged. They are primitive in form. Genuine issues are costly.

Have fun and update us from time to time.

Collect Italian stamps..

Just kidding Mike...Have fun..

Thanks - I do know what you mean by the Italian States. I think I've only come across one stamp from Sardenia so far but it looks like it's only a $20 stamp so maybe it's real. I'll post a scan at some point.

I didn't bother to print the States pages yet so that's still undecided. I think it's only 18 pages but for only 1 stamp, I may skip them. My pages start at 1862.

Another quick question - back of book stuff. I've noticed Steiner's pages(the up to 1960 set) have all kinds of Airmail, Special Delivery, Postage Due, etc. But I don't see anything in the 2 sets of pages after that - 61-75 and 86-93 - Did they not issue back of book stamps those years or is the Steiner set just missing them?

Mike

Wholeheartedly agree with cjpalermo on the very early material. After that, the chief challenge is the sheer volume of issues, beginning in the Fascist period. But there are far fewer challenging varieties of watermarks, perfs etc than one finds with other European countries. Another thing worth noting is that, in the 60s, the Italian Post Office put on sale quantities of mint, earlier issues, thus altering the market in one fell swoop.

Quite a lot of subsidary issues - Trieste, Fiume - plus the grisly colonial adventures.

My Italian collection took an enormous leap forward when I picked up four printed albums-worth in an auction (three Schaubeks and a Davo). My mental jury's still out on whether this is actually cheaper than printing off pages from the web and buying good quality binders - I suspect it may well be.

Enjoy.

Geoff

Thanks Geoff.

Part of the stamps are coming out of a 1964 Minkus Italy album. Not much early stuff in it but loaded with 1930+ stuff. It's a mess though with all kinds of dupes, pairs and blocks hinged to the opposite page. The album was in a collection I picked up at a yard sale a few years ago that really got me back into stamp collecting again. There are also about 10 jam packed envelopes of singles I still haven't pulled out of them.

The rest will be coming from a bunch of pre 1930 Scott Junior International and other old albums. Maybe 10 to 12 of those to dig through.

I'm pretty sure I'll end up with some nice Italian stuff out of these as some of them had some very nice US stamps.

Should be a fun project. Got 25 stamps mounted on the first 3 pages so far.

Mike, when you get done, should you wish to sell or trade your duplicate good quality singles, please contact me via email.

Started with a couple of vario pages I put some stamps in years ago.

They sure look nicer in an organized album though. I'm sure I'll find some upgrades along the way

Hey Mike..why did you choose Italy..?
just curious...Robert

Forgeries are my niche & Italy has a LOT of them especially in their surcharges like the officials 3rd row from bottom.
Also a lot of forged cancellations.
The first Emmanuel imperforate looks like a Type II with the line broken below the Q. Nice start - lots of good ones here.

Also you can get an idea of the "Italian States" here
http://www.italianstamps.co.uk/states/

They are missing in my Scott Specialized, which appears (I bought it at auction) to be updated to 1999 but lacks those sections also. Here is the contents list for my Volume I (Volume II is the early States):

REGULAR ISSUES, 1862-1999

SEMI-POSTAL STAMPS, 1915-1995

AIR POST STAMPS, 1917-1964
AIR POST SEMI-POSTAL STAMPS, 1933-1935
AIR POST SPECIAL DELIVERY STAMPS, 1932-1934
AIR POST OFFICIAL STAMPS, 1933-1934

PNEUMATIC POST STAMPS, 1913-1966

SPECIAL DELIVERY STAMPS, 1908-1976

AUTHORIZED DELIVERY STAMPS, 1928-1990

NEWSPAPER STAMP, 1862

POSTAGE DUE STAMPS, 1863-1991

MILITARY STAMPS, 1943
MILITARY AIR POST STAMPS, MILITARY SPECIAL DELIVERY STAMP, MILITARY AIR POST SPECIAL DELIVERY STAMP, 1943

OFFICIAL STAMPS, 1875

PARCEL POST STAMPS, 1884-1966
PARCEL POST AUTHORIZED DELIVERY STAMPS, 1953-1968

OCCUPATION STAMPS (AUSTRIAN OCCUPATION), 1918

OCCUPATION STAMPS (ALLIED MILITARY GOVERNMENT), REGULAR ISSUES; AIR POST STAMPS; SPECIAL DELIVERY STAMP, 1943-47

ITALIAN SOCIAL REPUBLIC—REGULAR ISSUES, SPECIAL DELIVERY, POSTAGE DUE, AUTHORIZED DELIVERY, PARCEL POST, 1944

OFFICES ABROAD, 1874-1881
OFFICES IN CHINA, 1917-1919
OFFICES IN CRETE, 1900-1911
OFFICES IN LIBYA, 1901-1909
OFFICES IN THE TURKISH EMPIRE, 1908-1922
AEGEAN ISLANDS (ITALIAN OCCUPATION), 1912-1940

ITALIAN COLONIES, 1932-1933

ITALIAN EAST AFRICA, 1938-1941

The albums I bought at auction contained one remarkable item that I will show in a scan in a separate post in a few days. Tucked in the Italian Social Republic section, mounted to the back of a page, I found: a green registered cover dated 22 September 1944 from Badia Polesine (Veneto), addressed in French to Prisoner of War Services at the International Red Cross in Geneva, franked with a pair of 1.25L deep blue ISR stamps and a 25c green single, with a Registered label, triple crisp Badia Polesine CDR's, German Wehrmacht censor tape, a crisp bright red Wehrmacht transit stamp with swastika, censor's number handstamp, and Rovigo and Geneva transit backstamps. There is handwriting on the back that will take time to translate from Italian, but appears to identify a prisoner by number and date of incarceration or capture. Perhaps it was a small-town Mama writing with anguish to her lost Giovanni. A remarkable item.

I completed collecting Italy in two big DAVO albums. An expert told me some of the earlier ones I had were forgeries. Its a good country to collect. Watch for each stamp you need on ebay, grab one set or one stamp at a time.

Robert, I chose Italy only because I've accumulated many thousands of Italy stamps in the collections I've picked up. A few of them were very heavy in Italy especially the collection that had the Minkus specialty album. That collection was in about a 75 pound box at a yard sale. I made a post here about that lot a few years ago but don't know if it's still here - It was pretty incredible) The US stuff was great in it, even had a nice penny black in one of the WW albums. The original collector was a well known art collector from Austria but came to the US during WW2 and the collection was very heavy on Austria as well. I tracked down his granddaughter and returned many of the items to the family but the rest has just been sitting here waiting for me to do something with. The 2 scans above are not from any of this collection. That stuff came out of Junior International album I had bought a long, long time ago.



Thanks for the tips and encouragement everyone

nl1947 - that's a great link! thanks! I see he also has a great site for regular Italy issues as well. I'll be referring to that a lot I think

Mike

Should have included this link to free (Italian language)album pages for the whole Italian area - i.e. Colonies, San Marino, Vatican etc. I've recently used the San Marino and Vatican ones.

http://www.ibolli.it/php/album_index.php

Regards.

Geoff

Well, I've mounted a lot of stamps over the last couple weeks. It's been a fun project and a lot of it reminds me of collecting for the first time which was very refreshing

Scanned most of the pages (up to 1953 or so) to my website.

http://www.mystupidhobbies.com/Stam...62-1960.html

still have a bunch of packed envelopes to sort through so hopefully a few of earlier pages will get some additions