Il COMMERCIO DI GENOVA

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aukepalmhof
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

Il COMMERCIO DI GENOVA

Post by aukepalmhof » Fri Nov 08, 2013 7:34 pm

During packing when moving house a few weeks ago I found from the late Mr. E.W. Argyle the following information on this ship in Sea Breezes May 1977. It gives a good insight how to gather the information on ships-on-stamps in that time and before the internet.

To commemorate the Day of the Stamp, the Republic of Monaco, in 1946 issued a stylised paddle steamship and part of a sea chart. The stamp shows Le COMMERCE DE GENES, which I mistakenly presumed was Le COMMERCE OF GENOA.
I wrote to authorities in that port shortly after the stamp was issued and I was informed in French “There does not exist any trace of the ship Le COMMERCE DE GENES, of the Company Paquebots a Vapeurs Sardes. It is without doubt an Italian ship”.
Some years later I received a photograph of the vessel’s itinerary which makes very interesting reading today.
It was from one of the ship’s ports of call, Nice. This sailing bill list the port of call from French port and is in the language of that country.
The ports were Marseilles, Genoa, Livorno, Civitavecchia, Naples. The passage money to these ports respectively were (from Nice): first-class Fr. 40: 30: 95: 120 and 170. Second-class Fr 30: 30: 60: 95: 120. Children under 10 years with escort half the passage. First-class passengers 70 kg. luggage free; second-class 50 kg.
Closed carriages on four wheels 1½ first class passage. Open carriages on four wheels 1¼ first-class passages. Calashes on four wheels 1 first-class passage. Servants sleeping on deck half second class passage. Dogs tied on deck Fr12. For deck cabins Fr 10 and more for each stage.
Letters posted abroad had to carry the royal stamps (At that time the vessel was registered under the flag of the Kingdom of Sardinia). It would be very nice to have a paquebot cover from the ship in one’s collection today. The details of this sailing bill were translated by the European’s leading ship stamp collector, (the late) Capt. Van der Starre, of the Hague.
I illustrated the sailing bill in my book “Ships on Stamps” and this had a very surprising and delightful result, from the Italian “Ships and Navigation” stamp collectors group.
It had been suggested to me in the original letter I received from Genoa that the ship was perhaps a French vessel trading under a flag of convenience, but I learned from a French source that there was no record of any French paddle steamship of that name.
Sr. Armando Olivo, of La Spezia, head of the Ship Stamp Unit of the Centro Italiano Flatelia Tematica, writes.
“In my position of chief of the Ships Unit of C.I.F.T., I am very pleased to inform you about a ship-on-stamp identification, recently obtained by a team work effort of our unit:
“According to our results the correct name of the paddle-wheeler is Il COMMERCIO DI GENOVA (Italian for Le COMMERCE DE GENES), first ship of the Societa Anonima deo Pacchetti a Vapore Sardi (Sardinian Steam Packets Company), established in Genoa in 1834, as per Institution Act issued on December 4.
“ The steamer Il COMMERCIO DI GENOVA, being part of the initial capital of the company, is mentioned on the 18th and 19th line of the document. The flag was one of the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the port of registry was Genoa (being part of the Kingdom at that time). The ship was operating a regular line between Naples and Nice, calling at Civitavecchia, Leghorn, Genoa and Marseilles.
The sailing prospectus you know, was printed to be used in Nice (note that all prices are stated for service from that port. Therefore it is not surprisingly written in French, even for an Italian steamer. Most probably, the Il COMMERCIO DI GENOVA was the same steamer previously trading as CARLO ALBERTO (gross tonnage 128.64), having been launched with this name on September 18, 1830 at the shipyard of Luigi Cotuzzo of Recco.
“In November 1833, her name was changed to ANDREA DORIA, and finally to Il COMMERCIO DI GENOVA in 1834.
Unfortunately, having been unable to trace out any picture of the ship, one important question has still to be solved in connection with the identification: is the design of the sailing sheet actually showing the advertised ship?”
Without having seen an illustration of the original ship I obviously cannot answer this question. There is an illustration of the first two vessel to commence the service in “The Sea, Its History and Romance”, by Frank C. Bowen, taken from a lithograph in the Macpherson Collection, the lithographers being Day and Son, and while the two ships depicted have the same type of black funnel, long and narrow and as high as the mast, they do not appear to be the same ships depicted on the stamps, for they are both two-masted vessels.

(I have not found more details on the ship, more info welcome)

Monaco 1946 3+2Fr. sg322, scottB92
Attachments
1946 Monaco.jpg

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