Romania : Spic De Griu 1893-1908

I saw a collector wishing to find
colleagues who collect the above on a small newsgroup.

Anyone know what these are? any gossip/info?

Thanks.

Hi Rodney,

Spic de Griu is Romanian for "wheat ear", i.e. the crop not the bird.

If you look at the frames on the stamps of the Romanian 1893-99 set - SG 316-346 - you'll see ears of wheat (or maybe barley?) as decoration. The designs were re-issued with different papers and watermarks in the following years up to 1908, with some vales in 1911 and 1918-19.

Thanks for posting the question - I'd never noticed the wheat before.

...and thanks for replying Nigel,
fascinating.
Romania is my strongest "non english" speaking collection,
and I prick my ears when I see anything new.

Romania is one country I collect <all> the stamps
and do not create duplicates (up to about 1950 that is)
so I may have quite a few "spic de griu"

A great site I found about old Romanian stamps you can find it here (assuming you don't know it already):
http://www.romaniastamps.com/

Yes, I know about that one ionut77
One of the best dedicated stamp sites ever!
For someone like me, a Romanian collector
absolutely fantastic :)
Thanks

BTW
I'll join Nigel...I think shown is an ear of Barley
Wheat appears to only have hairs at the top of the seed stem.