Ducati Centenary stamp revealed in Italy
A century in, Ducati’s legacy is being sealed the old-fashioned way — with an official Italian stamp celebrating its global impact.
There are plenty of ways to mark a 100th birthday, but not many involve being immortalised in glue-backed form by the state. Yet that’s exactly what has just happened to Ducati, as the Italian government rolls out a special commemorative stamp to celebrate the firm’s centenary.
Issued as part of the “Excellence of the Production System and Made in Italy” series by the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT), the stamp is essentially a nod to Ducati’s standing as one of Italy’s most recognisable industrial exports. Not bad going, for a company that started out making radio components.
The official unveiling took place in Rome at the suitably grand Palazzo Piacentini, with Undersecretary for Philately, Fausta Bergamotto, in attendance. The Ducati CEO, Claudio Domenicali, was also on hand, understandably keen to underline the significance of the moment.
And while it might sound like a small thing, a national stamp is a fairly weighty bit of recognition. It is actually less about posting things, and more about positioning. This is Ducati being held up as a symbol of Italian design, engineering and export success.
Visually, the recently announced Ducati Superleggera V4 Centenario Tricolore is front and centre, finished with a sweep of the Italian tricolour. As you’d expect, it’s about as subtle as a dry clutch rattle at idle.
This isn’t the first time Ducati has helped pieces of paper to travel around the world, as back in 2022, a stamp celebrating its MotoGP World Championship success was launched. On that occasion, it featured the title-winning Desmosedici GP22 of Francesco Bagnaia.
To mark the launch, a special A4 tri-fold collector’s folder has been produced, bundling together a block of four stamps, an individual stamp, a postmarked postcard, a philatelic card, a first-day cover, and an illustrated bulletin.
The folder is available at Italian post offices with philatelic (stamp selling) counters, in Philately Spaces, and on the website filatelia.it. Sadly, that website doesn’t seem to work in the UK – well, it doesn’t for me. So you may need to turn to the reseller market if you are a UK-based ‘Stamper’ looking to add one to your collection.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
