Home Catalogue index Volume 1 index Volume 2 index

Preview of Stamps Catalogue: VOLUME 2

ITALY Neapolitan Provinces

Return To Catalogue - Italy overview - Sardinia

Note: on my website many of the pictures can not be seen! They are of course present in the catalogue;
contact me if you want to purchase the catalogue.

The earliest Italian stamps did often only have the value written on it, the following table gives the meaning of the value inscription:

1861 King Victor Emanuel II embossed, inscription "FRANCO POSTE BOLLO"

  1/2 (Mezzo) t green
  1/2 (Mezzo) g brown
  1 (Un) g black
  2 (Due) g blue
  5 (Cinque) g red
  10 (Dieci) g orange
  20 (Venti) g yellow
  50 (Cinquanta) g grey (or blue)

Similar stamps were issued in Italy. Some of these stamps exist with inverted center.

vc = very common
c  = common
*  = not so common
** = uncommon

*** = very uncommon
R   = rare
RR  = very rare
RRR = extremely rare

Typical cancels:

I have my doubts about the following two stamps, the embossed center is inverted, forgeries?

A stamp of Sardinia with the same '1884' forged numeral cancel as shown above

A highly suspicious Sicily cancel on a 10 g stamp

Forged cancel on genuine stamp

Highly suspicious stamp with "PARTENZA DA NAPOLI 3 GIU 1861" cancel, the same cancel exists on forgeries of Naples.

The words "DUE GRANA" are written much smaller than in the genuine stamps in this forgery. The corner crosses are way too large. Besides it two more forgeries with very large corner crosses.

Forgeries made by the same forger? The lettering is completely different from the genuine stamps. Many of them have the cancel "NAPOLI 16 MAGG 61 12 M" or "NAPOLI 19 MAGG 61 12 M". This cancel is listed in the Serrane guide under the 1855 issue of Sardinia and is attributed to "I." of Genoa, I presume it refers to the forger Imperato.

Here the same forgery, but now with a "Annulato" fancy cancel and pasted on a piece of paper. This cancel was also used on forgeries of Naples made by Oneglia.

Forgery of the 2 g with different lettering, made by the same forger?

Here the "NAPOLI 19 MAGG 61 12 M" cancel on two genuine stamps.

I know that Sperati also has made forgeries with inverted head. He bleached out the design of a genuine stamp, leaving the embossed center intact and then printed a new design, inverted, on top of it. In this way the experts were fooled; they tried to establish if the embossing was genuine (and it is in these forgeries!). Examples of these forgeries can be found at: http://www.seymourfamily.com/rfrajola/Sperati/speratiindex.htm :

(Sperati forgery, image obtained from Richard Frajola's website)

Front and backside of a Sperati reproduction

In the above Sperati forgeries, there is a small break in the outer frameline, just above the 'S' of 'POSTE'. There is also a break in the line below in front of the 'T' of the same word. Finally, there is a break in the line just above the front of the 'E' of 'DUE'. This forgery exists on letters.
Sperati also made forgeries of a 2 g black misprint (with the same distinguishing characteristics as the 2 g blue Sperati forgery).

Other forgery with "FAUX" (=forgery in French) overprint:

(Could these be Fournier forgeries?)

Page from a 'Fournier Album of Philatelic Forgeries' with forged 2 g, 5 g and 50 g stamps, also a cancel "NAPOLI 12 AGO 61 8 S" in a single circle that was probably used on these forgeries.

Part of a Fournier Album.

A 5 gr Fournier forgery taken from a Fournier Album with a "NAPOLI 12 AGO 61 8 S" cancel.

10 g black (wrong colour); probably a forgery

Other items I don't quite trust

Dubious item, printing quite blur, no embossing.

A 'reprint' made for the 'Salon der Philatelie' in Hamburg 1984 of the 1/2 t value

Postal forgeries

A number of postal forgeries exist (to deceive the post office). There is one postal forgery of the 5 g value, two of the 10 g value and one of the 20 g value. Example:

Postal forgery of the 5 G value.

(Postal forgery, image obtained from Lorenzo)

In the above postal forgeries of the 10 g, the crosses in the corners are not symmetrically. In the genuine 10 g stamp, there are 12 pairs of white dots at the bottom and at the top, 15 pairs of white dots at the left and 14 pairs at the right. This postal forgery has 13 pairs of dots at the bottom and 15 at the top. I've seen them with the cancel "NAPOLI AL PORTO" used in March 1862.

Most likely another postal forgery of the 10 g, together with a genuine 5 g stamp.

I've been told that this is a postal forgery of the 20 g value. I have no further information.

Genuine stamps(?) of the Neapolitan Provinces, but the envelope is all forged made by Rodolfo Hensel (under the false name Dario Balbi)

Copyright by Evert Klaseboer