Work in Progress

# Deutsch # english # italiano # francais # nederlands #

Here a short summary of the usage of the Pearson Hill machine in Italy. At the moment without sources and not fully elaborated. Improvements will follow. Especially the years are written from the memory and have to be verified.

The Italian Kingdom was proclaimed by the former king of Sardinia Vittorio Emanuelle II in 1861. The capital remains in Turin, which was also the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia. North Italy uses the old sarde stamps - which was reprinted also in the new kingdom - whereas for the south new stamps in a different currency were printed. The Kingdom founded in 1861 has not the same territory as know it today: Venezia and the Veneto was seized 1866 from Austria, Latio and Rome where seized at the 20. September 1870. Rome does not play a role in the history of the Pearson Hill machine in Italy, but it is important to notice, that the capital was moved from Turin to Florence in 1865.

1863 De La Rue in London was ordered to design and print unified stamps for the whole Italian Kingdom. Part of this deal was the founding of "De La Rue Italia". The state printers in Turin bought from De La Rue some printing devices and the steel plates, from which the De La Rue series was printed. 186? a second print - the so called Turin print - of the De La Rue series was made.

It stil needs investigation, if De Le Rue was involved in the accomodation of an canceling machine for Italy. Certain is, that during some days in late autumn 1863 a english stamp machine was tried in Florence. From March to May 1864 a english stamp machine was tried in Turin. I have not seen any documents from the florentine 1863 try outs, but the 1864 documents from Turin show clearly, that the canceling of the stamp was done with an older Sardinien mute rhombe hand cancel. Using a hand cancel as a killer leads to the suggestion, that using the stamp machine could not be the big time saver.

1865 the government changed from Turin to Florence and in 1866 the "Number Cancels on points" was introduced in Italy. In 1868 and 1869 the english stamp maschine was used in Florence again. In the beginning there are a few cancels on outgoing mail, later on the cancel "tipo inglese" can be found on inbound mail. After 1869 there are no documents showing cancels from English stamp machine.

This was a short summary on the story of the Pearson Hill machine in Italy. I think there are two open questions for the reader: a) why the head line mentioned "Pearson Hill" but the text writes aboutan "english machine"? and b) what are the connections to the Bollatrice of Enrico Dani?

a) is simple to answer: the Italian literature knows these cancels as "tipo inglese". The fact, that this cancels originates from a stamp machine is very rarely mentioned. And details are very hard to find. The operation period of the "english maschine" would allow other machines, which was tried in England as well. But the design of the cancel used in Turin and Florence is the design of Pearson Hill’s Pivot Machine.

The answer to b) is also simple: the operation method of Pearson Hill’s Pivot Machine is comparable to the Bollatrice of Enrico Dani. It is no coincidence, that in 1880 try outs with an Pearson Hill Pivot Machine were made in Paris and three years later Eugene Daguin applied for an patent for a technical identical machine. So I’m sure that there are influences from the usage of an Pearson Hill Machine at the post office in Florence in 1868/69 and the construction of a similar machine 8 years later in the same town.