Varieties of the Numeral 2

Note: This article¹⁰ was originally published by the author in Philoteliki Lesbos in 1993 and 1994. It is reprinted here with some additions and modifications to include later information on the controls numbers.

1. Introduction

The importance of the study of the control number varieties in the classification of the large Hermes heads had been noted by Groom ¹, Bellas ², Coundouros and Stassinopoulos ³, Coundouros ⁴ and Basel ⁵. By noting all of the plate positions in which certain prominent varieties of the controls appear, we can determine how many settings of these controls too place during a given time interval and by coordinating these settings with the printings of the face of the stamps, we can arrange these stamps in their correct classification category. In this study, the plate positions of several prominent varieties of the control figure “2” have been determined over a wide range of stamp issues.

There have been some important studies of these control numbers, especially by the researchers mentioned above. Groom's work covered the numerals “2” in the 20 lepta and the “0” in all of the denominations bearing a “0.” Bellas described in detail both numerals but only for the 20 lepta. The work of Coundouros and Stassinopoulos expanded on Groom's study of the “0”, adding many new positions and varieties of the “0.”

Bellas published in 1978 a detailed plating study of the 20 lepta ² which included not only the plate flaws on the face of the stamps but also varieties of the controls of these 20 lepta stamps. He identified some 80 different varieties of the figure “2” and 80 varieties of the figure “0”, many of which are probably slight variations of the same piece of printer's type caused by progressive damage over almost 20 years of use. In the same book, Bellas published charts showing the plate positions and issues in which these characteristic control numerals appeared.

Bellas' work was not used extensively in this study of the varieties of the “2” because there were many discrepancies in the positions that he attributed to certain varieties as compared to my own findings.

Coundouros' very detailed book on the control numbers includes photographs of the complete settings of the:

10 lepta Paris Issue
80 lepta of 1863
20 lepta of 1867 (from Basel⁵ with one change)
10 lepta of 1867-69 (first setting)
10 lepta of 1867-69 (second setting)
20 lepta of 1870 (from Basel⁶)
40 lepta of 1871
80 lepta of 1873

A partial setting of the 40 lepta of late 1867 or early 1868 was also presented. All of the photographs of these control numbers were presented in actual size, i.e. approximately 6.5 mm in height and in some cases the printing was rather light making the actual details of the control figures difficult to discern.

Enlarged photographs of 20 characteristic control numerals “2” were presented with tables showing the positions and issues in which these numerals appeared. Most of these data were from Groom¹ and Basel⁷ with the addition of one new characteristic “2.” Several new positions were noted.

Enlarged photographs of 29 characteristic zeros were presented with tables showing the positions and issues in which these numerals appeared. Coundouros and Stassinopoulos, in the earlier work, had shown 86 characteristic zeros.

Basel published photographs of the following control number settings and characteristic numerals. The 40 lepta of 1871 was co-authored with Chris Belias:

20 lepta of 1867 ⁵
20 lepta of 1870 ⁶
40 lepta of 1868 ⁷
40 lepta of 1871 ⁸
28 characteristic “1's” ⁹
40 characteristic “2's” ¹⁰
38 characteristic “4's” ¹¹
99 characteristic “0's” ¹²

Other researchers of the large heads including Constantinides, Garas, Binos, etc. have noted varieties of the control numbers but not in a systematic manner.

In this study, the author has attempted to find the plate positions of the more prominent control number varieties of the figure “2” starting with their earliest appearance through to the meshed paper issues. It is a continuation of Groom's pioneering work (cited above) on the varieties of these control numerals.

This study was based on an inspection of several thousand 20 lepta stamps ranging from the Provisional Issues of 1861 to the Meshed Paper of 1876. The dates of the printings and their designations are presented in Table 2.

The letter designations for the issues originated with Pemberton, but have been modified by Groom and others. The dates are taken from Bellas but no attempt was made to verify them by systematic checking of postmarks on stamps in the author's collection, although occasional observations were made to confirm the assignment of a stamp to the correct issue. In any event, the exact date of the setting is of lesser importance than its correct identification and placement in the proper chronological sequence.

The existence of setting Lb was first reported by Bellas and the author has confirmed its existence in at least 100 of the 150 sheet positions. The sheet positions of several varieties of the numeral “2” in Issue Lb are presented later in this article. The zeros of Issue Lb are the same as those of the next Issue M, but they clearly have different twos, as will be demonstrated below.

The designation Inferior Paper is considered by many to be a misnomer because the paper of these issues is not significantly different from that of the earlier issues. I agree with this opinion but I continue to use the term Inferior Paper because it has become established in the philatelic community after long usage. No one should be misled by this erroneous nomenclature. A better name should be found to identify these issues.In the interest of brevity, I will use the above Group letter designations of Table 1 when discussing the issues (or control number settings) of the varieties of the numeral “2.” The reader may refer to this table to find the suggested dates and titles of these issues/settings.

I should comment on the relationship between a particular setting of the controls and the issue or printing of the face of the stamp. The Group letters, first assigned by Pemberton, although initially used to identify the characteristics of the face of the stamp, have also been used to identify the different settings of the controls. In some cases, two groups with different settings of the controls have faces of the stamps which appear the same, e.g. issues Jb and Jc, the two Cleaned Plate Issues of the twenty lepta. In other cases, we find two groups whose faces appear quite different and thus deserve and indeed have been assigned separate and distinct issue names and group letters, but they have control numbers which are the same, e.g. issue K of the twenty lepta, the special printing of 1870 and La, the first Inferior Paper Issue. In this latter case, although the settings of the controls are the same, the color and appearance of the La controls are quite distinct from those of Issue K.

One might wonder why the issues designated for the face of the large Hermes head stamps should coincide with the control number settings. In other words, when the appearance of the face of the stamp changed due to a change in its color, its impression, the paper color or quality, why, in most cases, did the settings of the controls also change. The answer is in the method used to control the quantity of paper used to print the stamps to avoid theft. Thus, if 1000 sheets of paper were issued to the printers, then 1000 sheets of stamps must have been supplied to the postal authorities. The printers thus printed the sheets of stamps in batches and they must have changed the method of printing when they started to print a new quantity of paper. They would also start the printing of a new denomination when a new quantity of paper was delivered and this would require a partial or complete change in the control number setting.

In spite of the above reasoning, there are cases where the face of the stamp changed even when the setting did not, e.g. Issue K mentioned above, but also in the Cleaned Plate Issues of the ten and forty lepta, where the face of the some of the stamps have a coarse and others a fine impression due, in my opinion, to a change in the underlay used in the printing.

In Figure 1 are displayed 12 varieties of the numeral “2” which were prepared from examples of Groom's varieties in my collection except for his type 10 which I could not find. Groom notes that this variety 10 which shows two breaks in the upper curved portion of the numeral is found in position 89 and 119 of the meshed paper issues, but the author was unable to find any examples of this variety in these positions. Groom also notes its presence in positions 88 and 75 of the cream paper issues; however, this study did not include the cream paper issues and, therefore, it was not possible to confirm their existence there. Perhaps other researchers will be able to find this variety and report the plate positions and issues in which it appears. Table 2 shows a portion of the table presented by Groom listing the plate positions of the 12 varieties of the numeral “2” in each of the 20 lepta issues. Groom's data on the zeros, the cream paper issues and the 10 lepta were omitted because they were not relevant to this study.

It should be noted that since the varieties of the control numbers were probably caused by damage to the pieces of type over their long period of use, one would expect to find examples of the same piece of type with varying degrees of deformation. An example of this is the variety Type 3, which has a break in the upper curved portion of the “2” and two smaller breaks in the lower part of the right diagonal. All three breaks appear in Issue K of 1870 and continue into the meshed paper issues N to R but the break in the upper curve does not appear in the earlier issues HJ (1867), Jb (1868) or Jc (1869), Also, it does not appear in Issue S (1876), the last of the meshed paper probably because the break was filled with dried ink and thus was printed as a solid line. However, the two breaks in the lower right diagonal are clearly visible in all examples, and prove that all of these examples were printed from the same piece of printer's type. Presented in Figure 2 are examples of this variety in each of the settings found in this study, The characteristic breaks discussed above are clearly visible in the displayed figures.

Table 2

Plate Positions of the Control Number “2” varieties according to Groom


Pos. 92 Consecutive Athens Group HJ, 9/67	Pos. 6 1st Cleaned Plate Group Jb, 1868	Pos. 11 2nd Cleaned Plate Group Jc, 1869

Pos. 11 Special Printing Group K, 1870	Pos. 11 1st Inferior Paper Group La, 1871	Pos.44 2nd Inferior Paper Group Lb, Nov. 1871

Pos. 125 3rd Inferior Paper Group M, July 1872	Pos. 9 1st Grayish Meshed Paper Group N-R, 1872-76	Pos. 112 Blue Meshed Paper Group S, 1876
Figure 2. Examples of Type 3 and 3a varieties of the numeral “2” in different settings.

Table 3 Settings With the Same Numerals in the Same Positions
Group Identification	Numerals which are the same

G and HJ	2 and 0
Jb, Jc, K, La	0
Jc, K, La	2 and 0
Lb, M	0
R, S	2 and 0

It is generally accepted today that the control number settings were the same for some of the adjacent issues. Please note that this does not mean that they were identical in every position, because there are occasional inverted numerals and other errors which were later corrected. This is especially true in the Jb issue of the Cleaned Plate where many of the zeros were inverted but in the following Issue Jc, most of these inverted zeros were corrected and were replaced in the same positions that they originally occupied. Those issues having the same settings are listed in Table 3.

It should also be noted that in some cases, Groom used different groupings than those described above. For example, he recognizes a group Ja which has the same setting as H and he combines these two as HJ; we agree with this, although Group Ja is not recognized today. (Groom probably used this designation to describe the last issue of the Athens Consecutive Issue in which the plates were partially cleaned.) Groom states that Jb has a separate setting, but I believe that the zeros of Jb are the same as the zeros of Jc, K and La; I agree that the setting of the twos in Jb are different. Groom then divides Group L into two settings La and Lb, but he states that the setting of Lb is the same as that of M and he then combines these last two into a common setting LM. I agree that La and Lb are different and that the zeros of Lb and M are the same, but I believe that the twos of Lb are different from those of M and that is why I consider Lb to be a separate setting.

The results of this study suggest some different settings and plate positions for these 12 control number varieties first reported by Groom. The revised data are presented in Table 5 and the differences between this and Groom's original table are discussed below.

Issues	Issue Date	Issue Name
D	9/62-12/63	Consecutive Athens
E	1864-65	”
F	1866	” (on greenish paper)
G	4/67	”
HJ	9/67	”
Jb	1868	First Cleaned Plate
Jc	1869	Second Cleaned Plate
K	1870	Special Printing
La	1/71	First Inferior Paper
Lb	11/71	Second Inferior Paper
M	1/72	Third Inferior Paper
N-Q	1872-75	Meshed Paper (grayish paper)
R	1876	Meshed Paper (grayish paper but same setting as Issue S)
S	1876	Meshed Paper (blue paper)

Control No.	HJ	Jb	JK	La	LM	N-S
Type
1	106	105	130	12	82	13, 62, 114
2	12	126	147	147?	37	76. 99, 101, 115, 134 (S)
3	92?	6?	11	44	125	76, 112, 112 (S)
4		150	89	53	15	55, 111
5			68	139	91	9, 30, 89
6		1	81	21	44	37, 94 (S), 134
7		50	13	5	33	25, 47, 72, 123 (S)
8		144	126	129	6	28, 52, 96, 145
9				70	134	14, 37, 54, 99, 129
10						89, 119
11				27	131	65, 116, 149
12						108, 137