Sunday, October 14, 2012

European Philatelic Congress

1st European Philatelic Congress, LivornoFortunes made by stamp issues - Governments are making huge fortunes out of a superfluity of special stamp issues, all at the expense of the poor stamp collector, the European Philatelic congress decided when it met in Leghorn, Italy. The congress decided to ask various governments to cut down on commemorative issues, stamps for special flights and the like. Gen. Italo Balbo, Italian air minister, revealed that the total cost of his squadron flight to Brazil in january-$150,000-had been covered by the sale of special air stamps, and a nest egg had been left over for another flight.

Utica Daily Press - Saturday, July 11, 1931
(Postcard digitized by the collection of Antonio Cantelli)

External links: Italo Balbo (Wikipedia)

7 comments:

Luis Gomez said...

This is very nice.

Traveling Hawk said...

Very interesting piece of information, VP!

Lois Evensen said...

Fascinating. :)

Jack said...

You are quite a historian, VP.

Dina said...

What an interesting and surprising bit of history. At least that money went to a good cause, instead of going down the black hole of post office bureaucracy [speaking here of my own country, how it would be].

cieldequimper said...

I wonder if that would still work...

Cezar and Léia said...

Hmmmm, I'm considering to open a post office... :)
God bless you!
Cezar