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Auction: 26015 - "The Treasure of the Eagles" Collection of Albania - Part I
Lot: 3147

(x) Wartime Transitional Period (1914-1920)
Muslim Insurgent Administration of Vlorë (1914)
1914 (Oct. 31). Registered cover from Vlorë to Vienna, correctly franked with upper sheet-margin pair of 50q. blue and ultramarine, tied by bilingual "Valona" c.d.s. in violet, showing at right Italian registration label without handstamp, probably applied at the Italian P.O. in Vlorë, from where this mail was forwarded. Some creasing and peripheral faults are of no importance for this rarity. One of the very few surviving genuinely travelled covers of this local issue. Michel 10.

provenance: Robert Ballauri
note: In September 1914, following the collapse of central authority in Albania after the outbreak of the First World War and the withdrawal of Prince Wilhelm of Wied, local Albanian authorities attempted to establish an autonomous local administration in Vlorë, largely led by Muslim notables, resulting in a short-lived provisional government that lasted until the Italian occupation of the town in December. On 15.10.1914, the local issue was created by overprinting Albanian stamps with a double-circle bilingual handstamp in Turkish and French and two types of similar rubber circular datestamps were locally produced. The few items that actually travelled through the mails were accepted for onward transmission via the Italian Post Office in Vlorë, which provided the only reliable channel for external dispatch. A small number of clearly philatelic covers (mostly addressed to Perikles Zissis) are known, primarily from the first day of issue (15.10), but also from subsequent dates; very few later items, paying the correct rate, appear to represent genuinely commercial or non-philatelic correspondence.

Subject to 5% tax on Hammer Price in addition to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium.

Estimate
£700 to £1,200

Starting price
£600