THE TWENTY LEPTA LARGE HERMES HEAD STAMPS

INK SPOTS ON THE HELMET

Flaws found on the large Hermes head stamps have been reported in philatelic journals from the early years of research into these issues. Often, the positions on the sheet where these flaws could be found were identified. More recently, books have been published showing ink spot patterns on each position of the sheet for the ten, twenty and forty lepta stamps. At the same time, pictures have been presented of characteristic zeros, ones, twos and fours of the control numbers together with tables listing the issues and sheet positions in which these characteristic control figures have appeared. Also, pictures of the control numbers for several complete settings have been published and the issues associated with these settings have been identified. With this wealth of information concerning specific flaws and other characteristics for each position of the sheet and for the stamp issue in which they appeared, it has become apparent that the ability to identify a stamp’s position on the sheet is very helpful in the classification of a large Hermes head stamp.

In this study, we will be concerned only with the ink spots that appear on the large Hermes head stamps. These ink spots were caused by dried ink left on the printing plate due to inadequate cleaning over long periods of use. These areas of dried ink, being at the same level as the printing surface of the plate, were printed on the sheets of stamps as ink spots and continued to appear in the same locations on the sheet until the dried ink was removed by cleaning. These ink spots were thus semi-constant flaws which were present only from the time that the dried ink was deposited on the plate to the time that it was removed by cleaning. Since these ink spots were deposited randomly, the ink spot pattern of each stamp position of the sheet is different. This provides the researcher with a means of identifying the sheet position of an unknown stamp once the ink spot patterns for all 150 positions are reported.

Sometimes the plates were partially cleaned with only a portion of the dried ink spots being removed. Often, after a cleaning, new ink spots would appear during the next printing period. There was thus a continuous changing of the ink spot pattern that appeared during a printing and a knowledge of these different patterns that occurred during the entire period that the plates were used gives the researcher a powerful tool for identifying the date range during which a particular stamp was printed. These ink spots can therefore be used for two important purposes: 1. to identify the sheet position of an unknown stamp and 2. to determine the approximate issue to which the stamp belongs.

Groom¹ in an article published in 1929 showed the ink spot distribution over almost the entire range of printings for several positions of the twenty and ten lepta stamps. My study of only a few positions of the 20 lepta led to the development of the chart in Table 1 below which shows the issues in which the various ink spots of position 115 appeared. The ink spot numbers are identified on the sketch of a stamp in Figure 1. This is only one example for one position. Bellas³ has compiled data for all 150 positions of the 20 lepta, whereas Basel has performed the same task for the 10 and 40 lepta.

Figure 1. Ink Spots of Position 115 of the 20 lepta.

Table 1 below shows the issues in which each ink spot of Figure 1 appears.

In this table, the top row labeled Groups is the stamp issue or printing using the Groom/Pemberton² classification system. These Group letters are identified in Table 2 below:

The numbers in the column at the left are an identification of each ink spot found in this position 115. The “x’s” in the table indicate the printings in which the identified ink spots appeared whereas the dots indicate smaller ink spots. The last row on the bottom of Table 1 shows the total number of ink spots in each issue. It is interesting to note the gradual increase in number from 4 in Issue D to 10 in Issue F and then a sharp increase to 33 in Issue HJ, the last of the Consecutive Athens issues.

Apparently there was a cleaning of the plate in 1867 in the middle of the printing of Issue HJ, because we see a reduction in the number of ink spots to 22 in the last of the HJ examples. Then, in the First Cleaned plate the number decreases to 14 and in the second Cleaned Plate it drops to only 3. The number of ink spots continues to decrease until in the last of the Creamed Paper stamps, there is only one ink spot. It should be apparent from an examination of this Table 1 that if one has a stamp from position 115 and if its ink spot pattern is compared with the pattern shown on this table, one can immediately deduce the approximate issue to which this stamp belongs. Other stamp characteristics, such as the impression, the paper, the control number, etc., can then be used to determine the stamp’s exact issue.

Another important use of this knowledge of the ink spot pattern is in determining the position on the sheet of an unknown 20 lepta stamp. For example, if one has a stamp with ink spots in the locations shown in Figure 1 for ink spot numbers 13, 31 and 32, he or she can be certain that the stamp is from position 115 because the probability is very low that the ink spots in another position of the sheet would have these same ink spots. However, there is a problem in displaying all the ink spots in every sheet position on one chart because the total number of ink spots is in the thousands and there would be too much overlapping. But it is possible to display enlarged sketches of parts of the stamp’s image with all of the ink spots that appeared there, together with the sheet position on which each of these ink spots appears.

In this study, the part of the design which was used to display all of its ink spots is the helmet of Hermes. Even with this one part of the Hermes head image, there are so many ink spots that it was necessary to divide the image into nine enlarged sections. In Figure 2 below is shown a sketch of the helmet with each of the nine sections separated by heavy red lines. Figures 2 to 10 show enlarged views of these nine sections with each of the ink spots identified as to the sheet position on which it is found. In some instances, there are more than one sheet position with an ink spot in the same location, and these multiple positions are noted. In some cases, there was an ink spot of one position that was in the same location as a larger ink spot of another position. In these instances, different colors were used to differentiate between the overlapping ink spots. Many of these ink spots were first noted by Bellas in his excellent study of the 20 lepta heads, while others were observed by the author. All of the ink spots have been verified by checking stamps in the author’s collection from each of the 150 positions. There may be other ink spots not shown on these sketches because stamps were not available from each plate position and from each of the many printings of the 20 lepta. Other researchers may indeed discover additional ink spots of the helmet and these should be identified and added to the enlarged sketches.

Using this guide, it is easy for a researcher to note the location of an ink spot on a stamp whose sheet position is unknown and to thus determine one or a few corresponding sheet positions. Using the Kaitatzides guide⁴ or the Bellas work, it is then easy to check these few sheet positions and to observe any other flaws or ink spots which correspond to those on the unknown stamp and to thus positively identify the sheet position of the unknown stamp. The great advantage of this method is that the possible sheet positions for an unknown stamp can be reduced quickly to just a few positions which can be checked in detail for a quick confirmation of the exact position. Of course, the unknown stamp may come from an early issue which does not have any ink spots on the helmet, in which case this method could not be used. Nevertheless, this work does present one more tool for the serious student to use in his research on the large Hermes head stamps of Greece.

In using these sketches of the helmet, click on the area of interest on the helmet in Figure 1 to go directly to the enlarged sketch for that area showing its ink spots.

1 Theodore Groom, Greece: The Crust-Flaws of the First Type and Their Uses, The London Philatelist, 1929, pp 109-114/146-151.

2 P. L. Pemberton, The Stamps of Greece, Philatelic Journal of Great Britain, Jan. 20, 1911, pp 6-7 et seq.

3. Ulysses Bellas, The Hermes Head: Generalities & Reconstruction of the Plate of the 20 Lepta, Paris, 1979.

4. Michael Kaitatzides, Greece: Plate Flaws of the Large Hermes Heads, Philatelic Society of Lesbos, Mytilene, Greece, 1984.

Click on letter for enlarged view of desired section of the helmet with its ink spots.