Greece, SC #ra79, 1946/47 Postal Tax Stamp - Are The Red Dots Listed?

Here are two stamp each showing a round red dot.

On the first stamp it is located top center and in the second stamp in the upper right margin. They seem to be layout dots (large ones at that) to guide the placement of the overprint.

Can anyone confirm that and is it referenced in a specialty catalog?




Secondly, on the first image, there is a second red roundish area at the bottom which looks to be foreign matter caused. Normally such issues are transitory, but if not is it referenced any where. The first is owned the second is from the WWW.

As always, if a catalog number is supplied within 24 hours I will update the title.

The underlying stamp for the over print is Scott #RA62

Thank you for your input.

Edit for an L in always and Catalog number adjustments in title and body of post.




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(I am asking for a friend who feels a bit gun shy.)

Postal Staff Welfare tax. The fight against TBC is symbolised by the crusader's cross known as the Cross of Lorraine.

But that welfare may be related to TBC. At least the original stamp was TBC related.

edit: as the overprint appears roughly in the correct place, a guide dot seems unlikely, as it would always have been on the stamp and not in the margin.

Note you are showing two different issues. Could they be Scott RA80 and RA79, respectively?

According to google translate 'post, telegraphs, telephone' translates into



T.T.T.

Probably nails that held the printing plate(overprint), they were not always perfectly placed and this sometimes this leads to dots in the margins. Stamps from Danzig are also well known for this.

It's Stanley Gibbons Catalogue No. C642 or C642a. The width of the surcharge on C642 is 22½mm; on C642a it's 21¼mm. C642 was issued in 1946, and C642a in 1949. Both are semi-postals in aid of the Red Cross. (The same surcharge was used for stamps in aid of the Postal Staff Anti-Tuberculosis Fund in 1946, but on 5l and 40l stamps, not 50l. So for once I think NSK is mistaken.)

(My source of information is SG Balkans Catalogue, 5th edition, 2009, so I'm not up to date.)

There are random blobs of red on both stamps, but the blob to which you particularly draw attention is suspiciously regular in shape. I can't come up with a better explanation than Johan Buvelot's. If it's constant, it ought to be catalogued somewhere!

How do you conclude these are red cross stamps? The 3 Ts represent what Nancy Simone Kramer has posted, Post Telegraph Telephone. The other text says "Staff welfare". Is there some way you can tell the difference between the original staff welfare overprints and the red cross ones you describe?

prj has identified the difference being the denomination of the underlying stamp, 50L as shown versus 5l and 40l. pjr, can you post a snap shot of the catalog page(s).

In Scott it is listed as Greece RA79

Here is another clip from Scott showing the type of surcharge used for RA79
but on a different stamp and denomination.

I finally got to my Scott (don't ask) and it shows the same info. Also I will confirm the overprint on RA79 is as shown in the OP. I mention this lithography's page shot missed the overprint for RA79.

As noted this was for the postal clerks welfare fund.

Of further interest is the referenced item by pjr are listed in Scott as RA77 and RA78 both also for the postal clerk welfare fund. Not the funds mention by pjr.

As shown in Scott a different overprint on the same stamp (RA62) in the OP produced RA81a which was for the postal clerks tuberculosis fund.

Edit: Lithography kindly slipped in the second page post while I was typing.

Now that we nailed down the stamp in question let back on the main topic here, the red dots. On suggestion is nail heads not properly driven in the plate. Any others?

Also does a specialty catalog list the red dots as a constant variety?

Hmmm....I see the dots between all the 'T's' in the top stamp look to be missing..am I right? (I don't have the best eyes, its hard to see)... so maybe this is an overprint error?.. or perhaps maybe an initial test overprint? The bottom stamp maybe is just an ink smear? I'm taking a guess here but this is interesting to try and figure out.

They are both different overprints. I have the top one with and without the extra dots, and I have the bottom one without the dot. The dot on the bottom one is completely unimportant. When I shared that image with Parcelpostguy, I had not intended for him to post it. It was just a random image I came across when I looked for it on Google to see what it was. As you can see, it has a watermark over the image. The dots on the top stamp are what I am interested in knowing about.

As requested:


Either Scott is wrong or Stanley Gibbons is wrong. Perhaps somebody has a more recent SG catalogue than mine?

It seems unlikely that the same surcharge would be used for two different charitable purposes, but this was a chaotic period of Greek postal history, so it's not impossible.

The word pronoia means providence.

The word "personnel" is translated by Google into prosopiko. Searching for "prosopiko" returns "staff." Prosopikoy appears some kind of declension of the word.

None of the words refers to "red cross." The three tau symbols would be an abreviation for PTT in Greek.



Add T.T.T. and you get exactly what Scott says PTT Personnel Providence..

It's the basic stamp that is the Red Cross element.