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Large Hermes head Paris printing:

The exact quantities ordered and shipped to Athens

By Louis Fanchini

(This article was originally published in Philotelia, No. 646, September-October, 2007, p. 271, Greek/English. The number of Paris Issue stamps delivered to Athens has been reported erroneously in previous studies. The author, my friend Louis Fanchini, has conducted a careful and detailed study of the available documents, some of which reside in the French Mint in Paris, others in the archives of the Albert Barre heirs and in the Paris Postal Museum. This article corrects the previously reported quantities and gives us an accurate accounting of the exact quantities delivered based on factual evidence.)

1. Introduction:

Most of the works dedicated to the study of the large Hermes heads of Greece take into account the quantities of stamps issued in 1861 and in 1876 as mentioned, especially in Le classement de timbres grecs published by Georges Brunel in Paris in 1929 and, of course, everyone’s bible, the Etude sur les timbres-poste de Grèce edited by late Tryphon Constantinides and published by the Hellenic Philotelic Society in 1933 in Athens. The quantities announced by these studies rely on the exchanges that Georges Brunel had with Désiré-Albert Barre, a little before the death of the French engraver, as well as with his son.

Later, two essential publications were edited, this time making reference to the official documents exchanged between the Greek and French administrations. These documents are found in the French Mint in Paris or they have remained in the archives of the Barre family.

The first, La commande à la monnaie de Paris des timbres grecs à tête de Mercure has been published in Paris by Dr. Pierre Bouvet in 1937. The second, which appeared in a series of articles in Le Monde des Philatélistes in March and April 1989, had been written by Ulysse Bellas. The entire contents and more often photocopies of these letters are reproduced in these two studies.

I have, very recently, personally examined these official documents, as well as the personal notes of D-A. Barre compiled in his own minutes. All these documents are now at the Musée de la Poste in Paris, since they have been acquired by the French postal administration following the sales of the archives of the Barre family from the Claude Aguttes auction in December 2002.

Starting with these last documents, I have been able to establish with certainty and without possible dispute, the exact quantities of stamps of the large Hermes head of the Paris issues ordered and delivered to Athens in 1861 and 1876.

It is noted that the English translation of the study of Dr. Pierre Bouvet has been published on the very rich internet site of Louis Basel http://hermesheads.home.comcast.net.

2) The printings of the 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 Lepta in 1861:

a. The initial order:

As it is known, the Greek Government appealed, in 1860, to the French Administration to fabricate the necessary material for the printing of the first Greek stamps and to supply, initially, a certain number of stamps.

In his letter of July 17th, 1860, addressed to Théophile-Jules Pelouze (President of the Authority of Coinage and Medals of France in Paris), Dimitri Kallergis (Minister Plenipotentiary of Greece in Paris) defined the specifications and the dimensions of the design of the stamp, as well as the values and the colors of future stamps. The quantities of each of the seven values that his government wished to acquire from the French Administration were equally precise (Table 1).

Table 1: Quantities initially ordered (July 17^th, 1860)

b. The final order:

In his response of July 27th, 1860, Pelouze proposed three modifications:

• The reduction of the number of values,
• the change of the colors of the 1 Lepton and 2 Lepta, and
• the increase in the quantities ordered.

Kallergis, in his letter of July 31^st, 1860, accepted the two last requests, but kept the number of values to 7. The quantities finally ordered were then a little more than doubled, with a minimum of 100,000 stamps per each value (Table 2).

We know these quantities with certainty since the publication by Bellas, in 1989, of two letters of D-A. Barre, addressed to Kallergis, describing the contents of the two deliveries of stamps and material to Athens on August 10^th, 1861 and September 11^th, 1861. These letters had been the property of the Barre family. They have since been purchased by the Musée de la Poste in Paris from the Claude Aguttes auction of the last Barre family archives, in December 2002 (See Philotelia, No. 618 of January-February 2003) and I have been able to examine them recently at the Musée de la Poste in Paris.

Table 2: Quantities finally ordered (July 31^st, 1860)

c. The quantities finally delivered:

About one year later, after many changes of events, the stamps, the printing material, the final die, a stock of paper and ink were delivered to Athens. As indicated above, two deliveries were made.

i. Delivery of August 10^th, 1861:

The first delivery consisted of two parts: the first included the printing plates of four values (1, 5, 20 and 80 Lepta); the second had the exact number of stamps ordered for these same values (Table 3).

Table 3: Quantities sent with the first delivery (August 10^th, 1861)

ii. Delivery of September 11^th, 1861:

The second delivery consisted of two parts: the first included the final die and the three printing plates of the remaining three values (2, 10 and 40 Lepta); the second had the stamps ordered for these same three values. Furthermore, D-A. Barre added to this delivery and to the quantities initially ordered the following:

• Some additional quantities of the values 2, 5, 20, 40 and 80 Lepta which he had printed with the surplus of special colored paper ordered exclusively for the printing of the first large Hermes head stamps (Table 4). In effect, the paper supplier delivered quantities of paper in even numbers of reams. These additional quantities corresponded to an addition of about 13% (145,000 / 1,100,000) of the stamps ordered. The Greek Government paid D-A. Barre for this addition, over and above the payment for the final order.
• On his own authority, D-A. Barre printed 100,000 additional stamps (666 + 2/3 sheets) of the 2 Lepta. In effect, he thought that the bistre shade of the first stamps delivered of this value were much too pale. D-A. Barre did not demand any payment from the Greek Government for this re-printing. To the great joy of future philatelists, the Greek Post used these two shades, printed on paper of different thickness (Hellas catalogue Nos. 2a, 2b, 2bPa, 2c, 2cPa and 2cPb).

Table 4: Quantities sent with the second delivery (September 11^th, 1861)

iii. Total quantities delivered

In summation, the total quantity of large Hermes head stamps of the Paris issue delivered to Athens, in two shipments by D-A. Barre was 1,345,000 stamps. This quantity was confirmed in the invoice letter sent on September 18^th, 1861 by D-A. Barre to the Greek Minister (the invoice was paid on September 22^th, 1861). 1,245,000 stamps have been invoiced for 1,867.50 francs (1.50 Fr. by thousand) and 100,000 stamps of the 2 Lepta have been printed and delivered for free (see Figure A). The details for each value are described in Table 5.

Remark:

In his letter, dated on August 10^th, 1861, sent with the first shipment of the equipment and the Paris printing stamps to Athens, D-A. Barre mentioned the following points:

“The printed sheets are split by bundle containing 100,000 stamps. Each bundle, composed by 666 sheets of 150 stamps, plus 2/3 of sheet of 100 stamps, is subdivided in 33 fractions of 20 sheets, or 3,000 stamps each, plus a 34^th fraction composed of 6 sheets and 2/3 of a sheet.

So, it is obvious that all the transactions and the shipments done then were counted in numbers of stamps and not in numbers of sheets.

Table 5: Total quantities of the Paris printing deliveed to Athens during the summer of 1861

Figure A: Extract from D-A. Barre diary with enlarged part n^o3:
    “Printing & Gumming of 1,245,000 stamps at 1.50 Fr. ‰ - Total of 1,867.50 Fr.”

3) The printing of the 30 and 60 Lepta in 1876:

On July 1^st, 1875, Greece joined the U.G.P. (Union Générale des Postes), which became the U.P.U. (Union Postale Universelle) on May 1, 1878. Therefore, the Greek Post decided to introduce two new values, the 30 and 60 Lepta.

In his letter of October 11^th, 1875, N. Delyannis, Chargé d’Affaires of the Greek Embassy in Paris at that time, asked D-A. Barre if he would be willing to restart the operation of 1860-1861, but this time for the two new values of 30 and 60 Lepta. D-A. Barre responded a few days later in the affirmative, asking the return of the dies which had been sent to Athens in September 1861. So in one hand, he could reproduce, exactly, the same effigy and the same design of these two new values as those of the stamps produced in 1861, and on another hand avoid to spend the cost of the fabrication of a new die from scratch.

Contrary to the coining press method used to produce the first seven printing plates in 1861, D-A. Barre planned to fabricate the printing plates of these two new values in the French Mint in Paris using the electrochemical method, called Galvanoplasty. With this method, used for the fabrication of almost all of the French stamps of the 19^th century, each printing plate is composed of 300 copper clichés [(10 X 15) X 2], obtained by electrolysis.

The printing of these two values was performed by the Printing Shop J. Claye & Cie, rue Saint Benoît no. 7 in Paris. The invoice addressed to D-A. Barre by this company, dated April 14^th, 1876, mentioned the supply of 500 complete printed sheets for each of the two values. Furthermore, on April 19^th, 1876, D-A. Barre similarly mentioned this same quantity of 500 sheets for each value in his letter addressed to N. Delyannis in describing the total contents of the delivery by ship to Athens, via Marseille, by the packet-boat company Fraissinet.

The number of stamps of the Paris issue of the 30 and 60 Lepta is thus 150,000 for each value (500 X 300) (Table 6).

Table 6: Total quantities of the Paris printing delivered to Athens (April 19^th, 1876)

4) Conclusion:

This article relies only on the quantities mentioned in the official documents exchanged between the Greek and French administrations, as well as the personal notes of Désiré-Albert Barre compiled in his own minutes. All these documents may be examined at the Musée de la Poste in Paris. Thus, it presents an exact and reliable consistency in the quantities of stamps printed in Paris and delivered to Athens in 1861 and in 1876.

The quantity of the Paris printing delivered to Athens in 1861 was thus 1,345,000 stamps. This number had been rounded to 1,500,000 by D-A. Barre himself in a letter describing the typography benefits and dated after 1861. This note was reproduced by Brunel in 1929 in his book Le classement des timbres grecs This rounded quantity later was retrieved by Constantinides in 1933 and copied in his Etude and it has been perpetuated since.

Concerning the printing of the 30 and 60 Lepta of 1876, the quantities of stamps produced in Paris and delivered to Athens was 150,000 for each value. The confusion came here from a communication of Brunel appearing in Philotelia No. 31 of May-June 1927. In effect, the author was deceived by the date of a note of D-A. Barre which concerned the calculation of the number of sheets necessary to print 1,100,000 stamps. This note had been written in 1861 and not in 1876, the number 1,100,000 being the quantity of stamps finally ordered by the Greek Government in 1861 (see Table 2 above). Once again, this quantity was copied by Constantinides in 1933 in his Etude.

This perusal of the different official documents shows the close collaboration between the protagonists involved in these negotiations as well as their thoroughness in the definition and production of one of the most beautiful classic stamps of the world. In effect, the Greek Government kept total control of the work, the definition of the design of the stamp, as well as the values to be printed. However, it accepted the advice of Pelouze and D-A. Barre concerning, in particular, the shades of the colors and the minimum quantities of stamps to be produced. This perusal shows us also the extreme courtesy which was shown by the different participants in all of these operations.

Finally, I would like to thank the Musée de la Poste in Paris and its employees for their support, Dr. Robert Abensur, president of the Académie de Philatélie of France (http://www.academiedephilatelie.org) for the pictures of Dr. Pierre Bouvet & George Brunel, as well as my friend Louis Basel for his outstanding help on the English translation of this article.

Figure B: The persons involved

Bibliography

•  Musée de la Poste in Paris, Archives de Désiré-Albert Barre - 1858 / 1876
•  Hellenic Philotelic Society, Philotelia, Nos. 31 & 618, Athens 1927 & 2003
•  Georges Brunel, Le classement des timbres grecs, Amiens 1929
•  Tryphon Constantinides Ed., Etude sur les timbres-poste de Grèce, Athens 1933
•  Docteur Pierre Bouvet, La commande des timbres grecs...,, Paris 1937
•  Ulysse Bellas, L’émission de 1876 de la Grosse Tête de Mercure, Monde des Philatélistes Nos. 428 & 429 of March and April 1989
•  Argyris Karamitsos Ed., Hellas Stamp Catalogue & Postal History, Thessaloniki 2006

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