Italian Steamships On The Danube? - Info Wanted

I am not, as the psalmist would have it, one of those who go down to the sea in ships. I rather go down to the sea in trepdation. My knowledge of marine cancels is decidedly weak. But I recently sold a couple of members of my family and bought this:



To begin with the obvious - three contemporary Romanian stamps cancelled on 12th November 1900 with an Italian steamship handstamp (Piroscafo Postale Italiano) headed 'Serbia'.

I am assuming that 'Serbia' is the name of the ship. I am assuming that since the stamps are Romanian the ship was operating on the Danube.

My problem is that I don't know of any Italian steamship companies operating on the Danube at this date. Of the four companies I have definite evidence for:
The Danube Steamship Company was Austrian
The MFRT and the Flotta Egyesulet were Hungarian
The Srpsko Brodarsko Drustvo was Serbian.

Can anyone help me on this?

That's a neat piece. The Serbia was a ship of the Navigazione Generale Italiana Line. Here is a page with information on the line:

http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/ngi.shtml

Here is a fragment of the 1906 Lloyd's Register for 12-knot Italian steamships:

Hi Bamra1,

What makes you think this ship was sailing on the Danube rather than on the Black Sea?

Perhaps a Black Sea operation?

Another NGI ship (also on the Lloyd's list, above), the Marco Minghetti, of a slightly larger displacement:




Black Sea, perhaps; certainly Mediterranean, as a number of the strikes I saw online for the Serbia were on Greek stamps and Greek covers, including two Greece to Italy (one Sicily) covers. Some were blue strikes, some were violet.

Sadly, I must add this to "the list" now, and go searching, as I find that strike pretty interesting.

Two reasons.

The first was sheer naked stupidity. Because I am only really interested in Yugoslavia I tend to think of Romania as just an appendage stuck on the end of Serbia to stop it fraying at the edge. So I forgot they also have a back end on the Black Sea where this could perfectly well have been put onto the ship.

But there is a second reason.My experience of the Italian Steamship Companies at this time is that they tended to name their ships after places (usually towns, but somtimes areas) that were stopping places on their route. So if there was a Serbia I would expect the line (not necessarily that specific ship) to have Serbia on their route. And that is the Danube, because at that time Serbia had no coastline on the Adriatic.

Thanks to you all for your comments.

You can see a postcard showing the Serbia below:

http://www.heritage-ships.com/image...rbia-ngi.jpg

As I read through the thread, I became more and more amazed about the almost instant repository of peripheral knowledge present on this site. I am the most humble of laymen on the subject marine timbrology, and the topic of Italian steamships on the Danube seems like a mystery shrouded in an enigma. Instead of which, the forum came up with solutions almost instantly. I am, to say the least, impressed. I like this forum for this very reason. Thank you all for restoring my faith in humanity on what is a cool and damp morning in North Africa :-)

A paquebot named "Serbia" was inflicted in an accident in 1905 on the Danube. Captains name in 1905: Bottone. It collided with the dutch ship "Celaeno" (captain's name: Bakker). The 'Serbia' was heading from Braila and near GALATI due to some problems with the direction it hit the prore of the anchored "Celaeno".
Constantin Ardeleanu, "Comertul exterior #537;i navigatia prin gurile Dunarii" - follow the link, page 165.
https://books.google.ro/books?id=QQ...1901&f=false

This took a strange turn. Here is the Celeano (a number of boats share the name, but this one shares the master's name from the log Wadmalatz posted above):



[image/info from shipspotting.com]




This boat is about 40% larger by tonnage than the Serbia, so the boats are bigger than I was expecting for the area. Galati is about 80km from the Black Sea. It was a shipbuilding center with a very large port.

Bamra1's strike for the Serbia matches strikes on Greek covers of approximately the same era, so this ship must have gotten around?

The Danube, the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, and perhaps the Ionian Sea? Does that make sense?

For what it's worth, I checked Hosking's Paquebot Cancellations of the World and didn't see this strike. I didn't really expect to see it there, but one can hope.