Grove Koger
I collected postage stamps as a child, and although I’ve long since given up the hobby, I’ve never lost my childhood sense that they’re windows to the wider world. I’ve since found other windows (and doors) to that world, but I still buy stamps from time to time. Among them are the first four issued by Aero Espresso Italiana S.A. (AEI). I’d seen reproductions in Scott catalogs (where they’re identified as numbers C1-C4) for decades and admired color images online more recently, and finally the urge to own a set became irresistible.
AEI was an Italian company established in Rome in December 1923 as the Societá Anonima Italiana, a name that was changed shortly afterward to the one more familiar to students of airline history and philately. (The designations “Societá Anonima” and “S.A.” are the equivalents of the American “Incorporated” and “Inc.”) It was the first passenger airline linking Italy, Greece and Turkey, but, more importantly to philatelists, it was responsible for issuing Greece’s first airmail stamps. And those were the stamps I bought a few years ago—little works of art that celebrate the twentieth century’s fascination with speed and flight in the context of Greece’s ancient Mediterranean heritage. I call them “little,” but they were quite large by the standards of the day. And although they’re a bit pale by modern standards, they’re esteemed by collectors as some of the most beautiful and evocative ever produced.
The Greek artist responsible for designing the stamps was one A. Gavallas (or, depending on your source of information, A. Gravalas, M. Gavalla, or M. Gavalas), who used black ink and watercolor. They depict Savoia Marchetti double-hulled flying boats in the four denominations illustrated above—over Phaleron Bay near Athens (2 drachmas), soaring over the Acropolis (3 drachmas), crossing a map of Southeastern Europe (5 drachmas), and as seen through a colonnade (10 drachmas). The stamps were lithographed in Milan by art publisher Bestetti & Tumminelli, but the process wasn’t a quick one, so Greek postal workers resorted initially to whatever surface mail issues happened to be available.
AEI’s first flights took place August 1, 1926, with the planes flying from Brindisi, Italy, to Athens and on to Istanbul, a route of almost 900 miles. The authentic AEI Greek airmail stamps shown above were used for the first time on November 3 on a flight from Athens to Brindisi.
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For information about AEI’s stamps and flights, I’m indebted to Aero Expresso Italiana S.A. by Vincent Prange, whose cover is illustrated below, and “The First Greek Airmails Defied Conventions of Design and Size,” posted on the Linn’s Stamp News site on January 24, 2014.
World Enough 