The 2nd issue - general introduction

The second issue of the Roman States came to light September 21st 1867.
The reason of this new issue was the change of currency (from June 1866 in fact the new metric-decimal system was adopted) and therefore the previous postage stamps had to be substituted. The papal approval came in September 12th 1866.
The creative effort was not so huge... in fact the stereotypes of the previous issue have been used just changing the values.
More specifically the values of the new issue were the following:

The 2 centesimi value was promptly made (papal authorization of July 24th 1867) because the fee for the printed matters was decreased from 3 to 2 centesimi. The same value of 3 centesimi at the beginning was supposed to be printed in green color. It was not issued and later on substituted by the sample in gray (may be because in the meantime the paper was already purchased and delivered?). Of the original green value the sheets already prepared have been destroyed with the exception of 5 pieces that indeed arrived to us and, of course, are a great rarity.
The remaining sheets were used to print the 2 centesimi value.
The models (galvanic-plastic matrixes) were prepared by Salvatore Montarsolo who invoiced them for 48 Lire (for 6 matrixes, without the one of the 2 centesimi that, as we said, was prepared later on).
The Coccapellier firm made the preparation of the stereotypes. The printing was executed with the black typographic process of the "Regia Tipografia della Camera Apostolica" of Rome in sheets of 64 parts divided in 4 groups of 16. These 4 groups were separated by a cross inter-space and with a large external sheet border (it is not rare to find it even today together with the stamps). The German firm Schmitt & Wast supplied the paper, through the banker Carlo Kolb, and it is quite particular because it's glossy and colored at the surface. Due to its origin it is also called "Germany paper": the purpose was to have a flat surface where, if a tentative to eliminate the cancellation was done, the printing would be taken off too. And this happened, may be even beyond the intentions: it is not rare to find pieces of this issue missing large part of the drawing. Previously the paper of the firm Testa and Picardi was rejected because judged not appropriate to this purpose. (cfr. "I bolli di Roma dalle origini alla fine del XIX secolo" of Mario Gallenga, on "Notiziario ASIF" nr. 178 of February 2nd 1979)

To be mentioned as for the 3 centesimi value two quite different color shades exist (and cataloguedseparately): gray and pinkish gray. Even for the 40 centesimi two different printing runs are catalogued: in the first one there is a dot after the value "40" in the second one the dot is not there. Even in this issue we can find various printing defects and stereotypes with bumped frames or interrupted, missing dots, incomplete drawings etc.. Between the most interesting varieties I want to mention the double printing. Very rare, differently from the first issue, the usage of split parts.

Again from the Gallenga article just mentioned we can deduct, even with some possible adjustment through a decrease in number, the approximate quantities of the issue:

Of the 3 centesimi, 60,000 parts are with gray shade and 19,200 with the pinkish one.