Magri stamp on Ebay going for a song?

The 'flu virus which is sweeping through Barga this week has left many people confined to their beds. The barganews staff were not exempt from the ravages of this horrible bug and so as you will have noticed, there has been little movement on the site – the last article published from new years eve (hmm, by the way… did you notice that the video from article has been removed ? Go back and have a look at the article – there was a video from Barga Jazz Club showing them playing around with some Village People songs – the company who represent The Village People got YouTube to pull the video on grounds of breach of copyright – the Barga Jazz Club musicians should be feeling quite pleased with themselves – they did a good job) Being confined to the house has meant that it has been possible to take a wander round the net and look at things that I normally would just not have time for. One of the things that popped up was the following: over on ebay there is an auction on the moment from a stamp collector from the UK selling off some of his unwanted stamps. One of them happened to catch my eye.

Unless I am mistaken it is a stamp designed by the Barga artist Alberto Magri (1880 – 1939) It seems to be a Christmas time stamp in aid of the families who had sent male members to fight in the war. The flag that the girl in waving in her right hand seems to be the old Italian flag when there was still the Royal House of Savoia emblem in the middle. The auction finishes at midday tomorrow and at the time of writing there has been only one offer for 99p – could this be a bargain just sitting there waiting to be snapped up?  We shall see tomorrow evening. The auction of Ebay is here

"Spesso il sussidio prese il carattere di un premio per le famiglie dei valorosi che si erano distinti sul campo di battaglia, spesso rappresentò un primo aiuto, in occasione di una morte gloriosa" -  "Often the subsidy took the character of a premium for families of the brave who had distinguished on the battlefield, often represented a first aid at a glorious death"