The Ten Lepta Large Hermes Head Stamps of Greece

(The following is a talk given by Louis Basel at the Karamitsos Symposium in Athens, Greece in June, 2001.
For more detailed information, please refer to the book of the same title.)

Today I am going to talk about the ten lepta large Hermes head stamps. Most of you are familiar with these issues, but I would like to tell you a little about some of the interesting information that I found in my studies of these stamps during the last few years. First, let me show you a picture of a Paris issue ten lepta stamp.

When I first became interested in the large heads, I was encouraged to buy a copy of the Etude edited by Tryphon Constantinides. I studied this lengthy text carefully, but even with all of the descriptions and detailed information on the printing impression, the paper, the control numbers, the underlay, the gum and other characteristics, I still had difficulty in classifying my small collection of large heads. So I looked at other sources of information like the early works of Pemberton, Groom, Argyropoulos & Munk, Spink-Truman and many others. Although I began to understand the secrets of the classification of these issues, I still had difficulty.  I was particularly intrigued by the works of Theodore Groom who took a systemized approach to the study of the large heads.  He examined the ink spots that resulted from dried ink left on the printing plates due to inadequate cleaning. He found that if he looked at several stamps from the same plate position and arranged them in the chronological order of their printing, the same ink spots would appear in the same locations on the stamp in consecutive issues.

Another aspect of Groom’s studies was the identification of defective numerals in the control numbers that appeared on the backs of some of these issues. He found that the same defective zeros appeared on different denomination stamps: in other words, the 10, 20, 40 and 80 lepta. This led him to conclude that only one plate was used to print the control numbers of all of these denominations and that the control number plate was composed of movable printers type which was changed periodically whenever the printers changed the denomination of the control number sheets being printed.  He also found that the identifiable defective zeros periodically changed their position on the sheet and that these same changes in position appeared on almost all of the control number sheets of different denominations.

Groom suggested that here were two powerful tools which could help considerably in the classification of many of the large head issues. Coundouros and Stassinopoulos in an excellent article in Philotelia in 1986 showed the importance of the control numbers in the classification of the large heads by expanding on an earlier study of Groom, but the use of the ink spots adds another dimension to the systematic (and probably more scientific) classification of the large head stamps.

Classification of the Ten Lepta Stamps

In classifying the ten lepta, I decided to use the numbering system of Groom which is shown in Table 1 together with that of Constantinides in the Etude. Most of you are familiar with these designations and I will not give here a detailed discussion of each issue. However, there are a few points I would like to mention. Regarding the Provisional, issues I do not distinguish between the coarse and fine because I could not find a consistent method of separating them. Similarly, I do not accept the existence of the May 1862 issue because I could not find any distinguishing characteristics with which to separate them from the other early Consecutive Athens issues. Issues B through F correspond to the Constantinides issues 30a through 30e. There are two Cleaned Plate issues and two Inferior Paper issues each pair distinguished by their control numbers. There are also two Meshed Paper issues, one on yellowish-greenish paper and the other on lilac paper. The two Cream Paper categories are separated by the presence or absence of control numbers.

Table 1

Classification of the Ten Lepta Issues

Now I will discuss how I proceeded to study these 10 lepta stamps.  I first used a computer method to plate about 3000 stamps which I had accumulated over many years. Most of these stamps are inexpensive copies with faults which did not obscure the characteristics of the stamp’s image or the control numbers on the back. Although they would not be suitable for exhibition, they are perfectly adequate for studying the detailed characteristics of these issues. Figure 2 shows the numbers of stamps in each issue which I examined as part of this study. Since I accumulated these stamps randomly at auction or by direct purchase, this graph should be an approximate indication of the relative scarcity of the various issues. As one would expect, the Paris and Provisional issues are low in number. The Consecutive Athens, Meshed Paper and Cream Paper are the highest. The very low numbers of the Inferior Paper issues and lilac paper issue J were somewhat surprising but I am sure that many of you were already aware of the relative scarcity of these printings.

Figure 2. Number of stamps examined in this study.

 

Colors of the Papers

The colors of the papers of the various issues are listed in Table 2. There are six basic colors in the sixteen Groom issues. The paper is light blue. The papers of issues D and F are blue. Those of the Provisional and other Consecutive Athens printings as well as the Cleaned Plate issues are bluish-greenish. Paper of the Inferior Paper and most of the Meshed Paper stamps is yellowish-greenish (or grayish-greenish). The Meshed Paper issue J has lilac paper and the Cream Paper issues have the color that their name implies.

Table 2

Colors of the Ten Lepta Papers

 

Issue	Groom Type	Paper Color
Paris	Paris	light blue
Provisional	Provisional	bluish-greenish
Consecutive Athens	B	bluish-greenish
	Ca	bluish-greenish
	Cb	bluish-greenish
	D	blue
	E	bluish-greenish
	F	blue
Cleaned Plate	Ga (Ga1, Ga2)	bluish-greenish
	Gb	bluish-greenish
Inferior Paper	Ha	yellowish-greenish
	Hb	yellowish-greenish
Meshed Paper	I	yellowish-greenish
	J	lilac
Cream Paper	K-M	cream
	N-X	cream

 

 

Figure 3 shows photographs of the backs of the sixteen issues of the previous slide and you can see the colors just mentioned. The Paris with its light blue color, the D and F issues of darker blue, the lilac paper of issue J and the two Cream Paper issues. The other Consecutive Athens and Cleaned Plate issues have a bluish-greenish color while the Inferior Paper and Meshed Paper issues have a grayish-greenish color. There are exceptions to these general rules on paper colors but these are rather rare and should not interfere with the classification of the great majority of ten lepta stamps. I should note that I believe that the paper of the Inferior Paper stamps is not inferior, but only has a change in color which is not very attractive.

Figure 3. Papers of the ten lepta.
(click on image for larger view)

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