The thread was quite long, and I have edited out
sundry bits. So I hope you dont take parts out of context.
Take what you will, that is appropriate from the discussion.
Tony was commenting on CTO and favour cancellations as well.
Anyhow I hope it is of some interest.
They were first issued with a winged wheel watermark in 1946
They were still in use 30 years later - with stars watermark.
The PVA gum variety was issued between 1974 and 1976.
Multiples like this were probably favour cancelled, and is the way
Italian collectors collect these issues - the halves have significantly
less value.
To my mind favour cancelling is quite different from CTO material,
where obsolete stamps are cancelled and sold below face.
During the period after the Italians surrendered during WW2 many
pairs of parcel stamps were used on cover because of a shortage of regular
definitive postage issues. However, this clearly did not occur in this case.
It is true that at most periods, the normal use of the parcel
stamps involves the right-hand half being separated and kept on the receipt.
Thus used pairs are favour cancelled, meaning nothing went through the
post paid for by the stamps, which come under the CTO heading as far as SG is
concerned.
However, as used pairs are the Italian way of collecting them, they quote
prices for them.
Sassone has started to quote prices for used right-hand halves in pre-war issues,
with the comment that left-hand used halves are a given multiple (usually twice)
of the right.
No, but then parcel stamps did not go ON the parcel anyway.
They went on what is called a Parcel Card (or Bollettino per la spedizione
in Italian)
I cannot explain WHY the Italians prefer these stamps used in pairs, but
they do. I have pairs where possible, and singles where not, simply because
they have better eventual resale value.
They are best collected on parcel card, and that is indeed tricky.
for an interesting example, not short of the odd postmark!
What are really scarce are the first issue of parcel stamps
actually still on their parcel card, as seen in
Sassone gives the used stamp as 18 euros, but 2500 euros on card!
> I thought the idea of the other half was that it went in
> the receipt book (or accounts book). Did Italy give up
> this practice?
Seems like it. I have had an offer to buy several items which
show the same characteristics - relatively recent forms of the
parcel card with entire pairs tied with a cancel. In some
cases these are overseas cards (like the Swiss example
I posted), and I suspect that it was a sort of 'postage due'
use.
This is the block that started the discussion, and what I thought were CTO, but now described as possibly favour cancelled.
Posted 05/06/2010 7:36 pm
