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The more we dug into the "how to's" of collecting Vatican First Day Covers (FDCs) this year, the more confusing things got. This confusion centers around one major issue: exactly what is the source to obtain of Vatican first day covers? In William Wickert's 1996 article on "Collecting Vatican First Day Covers", he noted that if a postcard or letter is mailed, using a stamp issued on the date of mailing, that effectively constitutes the creation of a legitimate first day cover. However. the most common approach of creating First Day Covers is to have them philatelically prepared, such as the many cacheted covers produced by commercial FDC vendors. These have graced our stamp albums over the years. Unfortunately, by 2010 most first-day cachet cover dealers simply went out of business. So, what must one do to collect Vatican First Day covers in 2024? The decline of cachet stamp dealers has left those of us who had enjoyed collecting beautiful Vatican cachet first-day covers some serious decisions on how to continue adding new material to our collections. Our current cover sources seem to be: • The Vatican's Commercializzazione Filatelica e Numismatica (CFN) • Vatican Post Office • Stamp Dealers • On Line Sources - Ebay (including Ebay.it), Decampe Stamps, Colnet. etc. At this point there might be some confusion between the CFN and the Vatican Post Office. Both are agencies of the Vatican City government. However, their task is a bit different. When a stamp is issued in Vatican City, it is released by the Vatican Post Office. The main purpose of the Vatican Post Office is to move mail within Vatican City. It also sends/receives external mail to and from the Italian Postal Service. If you mail a postcard while visiting Vatican City, it is postmarked at the Cental Post Office building, bagged, and sent to the Italian Postal service. If you send a letter to Vatican City it goes to the Italian Post Office and then is sent to the Vatican City Post Office. The Vatican Post Office sells stamps, covers, and special folders at Vatican Post Office sites within Vatican City. It also supplies stamps, covers, and special folders to the CFN. However, there are some covers and folders issued by the Vatican Post Office that are not sent to the CFN. Then what is the function of CFN? The purpose of the CFN is to sell philatelic material which has been transferred from the Vatican Post Office to the CFN. The Vatican Post Office only sells stamps, covers, and folders at the Vatican Post Office locations within Vatican City. The Vatican CFN sells the subset of stamps, covers and special folders provided by the Post Office to collectors through their on-line computer website. Not being able to buy all stamps, covers, and folders that are available by visiting a Vatican Post Office location does sometimes present a challenge for those of us who are overseas collectors and not living in Italy, which is probably 99.9% of the VPS membership. Some Vatican collectors have been buying "stamps on cover" from the CFN. These covers have been postmarked with a standard circular everyday Vatican postmark with a 1 in the upper moon, an F in the lower moon, and the issue date in the center of the postmark (see the left figure below). These covers are postmarked with the stamp issue date and therefore by definition, are legitimate first day covers. However, such dull-looking covers have probably not helped stimulate any excitement about collecting Vatican first-day covers. However, as it turns out, the Vatican Post Office creates special postmarks to be used to cancel stamps on their first day of issue, as illustrated by the Easter 2020 postmark on the right: 
 2020 Easter Postmarks Left figure is standard round standard cancellation used by the CFN Right figure is first-day postmark used by Vatican Post Office  2020 Easter Cover purchased as "stamp on cover" from the CFN website By reading the Italian version of the Vatican Postal announcements, it was discovered that the Vatican Post Office creates unique first day postmark devices for every stamp issued. I tried to order "stamps on cover" with the first day cancellation postmarks, and I have met with success for the February 2024 issues (to see the 2024 issues, visit the VPS Website, choose "Stamp List" and click on the Cover buttons). There are also special issue cancellations for covers for events such as the January 1st World Peace Day and stamp show participation. I have not attempted to get these covers as of yet. Time will tell if this can be done for future issues. Here is one example of a cover received from the Vatican Post Office with issue-specific first day postmarks:  This is a February 2024 issue specific first day postmark received from the Vatican Post Office The Vatican Post Office offers special first day covers, which include colorful cachets. But these covers are only available with the purchase of special folders sold through the Post Office. And, the Post Office does not issue special folders for all its stamp issues. In addition, the few cachet covers and folders sold by the Vatican Post Office are not sold to CFN customers (they are not seen on the CFN website's on-line order screens). Here is an example of a cachet cover produced by the Vatican Post Office for one of their folders:  This is a cachet cover issued by the Vatican Post Office which is a "special" folder sold is only in Vatican Post Office locations and is not sold by the CFN on their website. Recently the Vatican Post Office has announced seven new issues to be released in May. On May 21st, these new releases became available for sale on the CFN website. However, based on the Post Office release announcements (the Italian version is viewable on the VPS website), none of these new issues will have folders or cacheted first day covers. Vatican FDC collectors can attempt to order stamps on envelops cancelled with the special first day of issue cancellations. It requires a bit of work and special instructions with the order to CFN. So, my next order to the Vatican will be to try to get the May 21st stamps on cover with the issue specific first-day postmarks which have been described in the postal announcements. After a bit of research, I have found that some Vatican first day covers, with cachets, are being produced by dealers, perhaps in Italy. It has been impossible to determine if cachet covers are being produced for all Vatican stamp issues. So far it does not seem so. Scanning the Ebay.it website (using search words like "Vatican 2023 first day cover") does produce several cachet covers that are being made for a few stamp issues, especially Christmas. The few covers I have found range in pricing from 9 to 14 dollars (or euros). I have yet to determine who is making these non-Vatican Post Office cachet covers, what their pricing structure is, and what availability is like. I am trying to learn additional information, specifically if covers are available for every Vatican stamp issue, and how to obtain these covers. Some of the cachet covers found on my Ebay.it search look like they came from the folders sold by the Vatican Post Office. I hope that cachet covers coming on the market are not of the " have computer printer, will add cachet' variety. Some almost look like it! One of the other interesting aspects of searching on Ebay.it was how inflated the pricing was for the Easter 2024 and Christmas 2023 folders currently being sold by the Vatican Post Office locations for 10 euros each. The Ebay.it price for the two folders is 25 euros each. They are available at the Vatican Post Office today for 10 euros, but you have to be able to visit a Vatican Post Office site and buy them. Perhaps the extra 15 euros of the Ebay.it price is cheaper than the cost of visiting Rome. These two folders are not available through the CFN website. So again, what should VPS Members do to collect Vatican first day covers in 2024? The answer to this question does seem very confusing at this time. There doesn't seem to be an immediate answer available. For some time, I have been communicating with Vatican CFN/Vatican Post Office contacts about the various ways VPS members can overcome the obstacles of Vatican First Day cover collecting and how to obtain various first day covers. I have wanted to be able to tell VPS members exactly how to get first day covers from the Vatican so as to avoid some of the pricing add-on done by dealers and those who want to make substantial profits by selling on-line. As of now, I cannot determine how best to obtain Vatican first day covers for new issues in 2024. We can only continue to see what the Vatican CFN/Post Office will produce for us and watch to see what the cachet dealers will develop. Visit the 2024 VPS stamp list, click on the cover buttons to see examples of recently obtained first day covers. REFERENCES: • W.M. Wickert, Collecting Vatican First Day Covers Vatican Notes, Volume 44 No.5, March 1966, pages 1,6-8 • Lanahan, Marvin Vatican Postmark Announcements Found VPS Daily Email, published 03/10/2023 • Lanahan, Marvin About Vatican First Day Covers 2024: Another Episode Of Communicating With The Vatican Post Office VPS Daily Email, published March 2024 • VPS Website Team Travels of the Webmaster: The Vatican Central Post Office VPS Daily Email, published 05/09/2024 |
