Olivetti Lettera 22 Portable Typewriter Anniversary Celebrated with Italian Postage Stamp

I was curious as to why there had been, in the past few weeks, a surge of views of my blog post from January 7 last year on the history of the Olivetti Lettera 22 portable typewriter. It turns out that on Tuesday of this week Poste Italiane issued a postage stamp dedicated to the Lettera 22, “on the 70th anniversary of production” (1950). Poste Italiane also dedicated a special stamp to Adriano Olivetti, “in the 60th year after his death” (he actually died on February 27, 1960). The image of the Lettera 22 on the stamp comes from British adverts which first appeared in October 1953 (see below).

These full-page advertisements appeared in British publications The Illustrated London News and The Sphere in October and November 1953. A close-up of the Lettera 22 itself shows that the earliest models had an embossed brand name on the paper plate: