The Neapolitan Provinces

It should be said that it is not on eof the Old Italian State, but simply a particular issue used in the ex- Naples Kingdom territories; for this reason I have shown neither the coat of arms nor the territory because they simply do not exis....

At the end of the 1860, to substitute the postage stamps in use in the Naples Kingdom, still with Borbonic emblem and currency, it has been decided initially to introduce values graphically similar to the ones in use on the Sardinia territory, with at the center the Vittorio Emanuele II effigy and the new values in Lire. The job responsibility was given to the baron Gennaro Belelli, "Direttore delle Poste, Telegrafi e Ferrovia di Napoli".
At the same time, nevertheless, started the Carlo Farini Lieutenance, who, on the example of what done in the Romagne, believed to be more convenient to proceed to a new issue but still with Borbonic values. That was in fact the only one currency in day-by-day use in the territory. The Belelli in the meantime started to print locally in Naples the stamps with the values in centesimi, while the production of the ones with Grana was in Turin, for security reasons to avoid as much as possible frauds and falsifications.
After several ups and downs that brought quite a bit of confrontations between the Postal Administrations of Turin and Naples, the final order was to suspend the production of the stamps in centesimi, that today are known and collected as "not issued" (very few parts came through regularly the mail too). The Neapolitan Postal Administration was also closed (April 1st 1861, following the Royal Decree 4685 of March 19th 1861) leaving as unique only the Turin one and establishing the four District Administrations of Naples, Bari, Cosenza and Chieti.
In the mean time, in February 1860, the validity of the Borbonic currency was extended with the equivalence of 5 Grana=20 centesimi. The Italian currency entered definitively in use with the September 19th 1861 decree, even if a previous decree made it official from September 1860 (but practically never adopted).
Let's go back now to the issue in Grana, used from mid February 1861, together with the Borbonic one that continued to be sold: this gave origin to rare mixed postage. We can define it a set of transition between two regimes, Borbonic currency and Sardinian subject.
It is composed by the following values:

The subject represented is the Vittorio Emanuele II effigy in relief inside a double oval frame, enclosed in a double rectangular frame. The four mixed-line corners that are formed between the oval and the first rectangular frame are filled with thin vertical lines.
Inside the rectangular frame there are the labels (from left) "FRANCO", "POSTE", "BOLLO". At the bottom there is the indication of the value.
All around we find a frame of small rectangular pearls, close to each other in couples. In the four corners of the rectangular frame containing the labels there are small ornamental frames (a white Savoy cross on colored background).
The printing follows enough faithfully that one made for the Sardinia stamps also because was Matraire himself to implement these values too: the central effigy, made by Giuseppe Ferraris, is in dry relief while the colored background is in lithography.
The effigy dry embossing was made with the same two systems used for the IV Sardinia issue, In fact it is possible to find the same cracking in the effigy (see introduction to the Sardinia issue). The parts embossed with the first system (effigy on composition of 50 pieces) are rarer than the one with the tool with two effigies.
The printing was made in sheets of 100 parts, printed on two side-by side stones with 50 prints (10 rows of 5) on machine made paper of variable thickness, not watermarked, cut before distribution in sheets of 50 parts each.
The printing was obtained starting from only one stone without value indication, from which the definitive matrixes for the single values were obtained. I send you again to the introduction to the IV Sardinia issue for all the technical details.
The quantity of some values that were in some cases printed with more plates (at least the most used values like the 2 Grana and the 5 Grana) is not known. With the production running, the paper went thinner and thinner but was always of good quality.
The stamps were not introduced at the same time: the first to appear were the Half Tornese, 1, 3, 5 and 20 Grana; the full set as per the following scheme:

Starting October 1st 1862 these stamps were placed out of validity and substituted with the Sardinian ones; but we know used without being taxed also in the following days because accepted to the change up to October 15th (very rare the mixed postage).
The chromatic shade of all the pieces was somehow variable; between the varieties we find front-back printings, multiple effigy embossing, upside down effigies, offsets, parts showing typographic framing thin lines, missing and defective printings etc.; in substance more or less the same varieties of the IV Sardinia issue.
To be mentioned also the existence of some very rare parts printed with wrong color: the Mezzo Tornese and the 2 Grana printed in black, perhaps because printed by mistake together with a stock of the black Mezzo Grano.
Also of this issue as for the Borbonic stamps, some value was forged to cheat the Postal administration. They are the 2, 5, 10 and the 20 Grana.