Another Post On Large Hermes Heads

Hello All,

I recently purchased about a dozen Large Hermes Heads at auction as the start of building a reference collection for identifying this fascinating but complicated series of stamps. After receiving the stamps and upon closer inspection I began to realize a few of them were obviously misidentified and I began to suspect the rest. so I am posting a few pictures in the hopes that the community will be able to help me the their identification.

Stamp 1 front



Stamp 1 back


Stamp 2 front


Stamp 2 back


Stamp 3 front


Stamp 3 back


Stamp 4 front


Stamp 4 back


Thanks so much for your help
david

Hi & Welcome:Cursory examination (all Scott numbers).
Must check if no.2 has some relief on the white parts
1) 27 Cleaned plates printing
2)15b Consecutive Athens printing
3)9b Athens Provisional Printing (Brown)
4)9b " (Bistre)

Thanks perf12

Here are a few more

Stamp 5 front


Stamp 5 back


Stamp 6 front


Stamp 6 back


Stamp 7 front


Stamp 7 back


Stamp 8 front


Stamp 8 back


Stamp 9 front


Stamp 9 back


Stamp 10 front


Stamp 10 back


Stamp 11 front


Stamp 11 back


Stamp 12 front this stamp appears to have mesh


Stamp 12 back


Thanks again

Willwood42:for some pics for meshed paper it would be better posting
pics like the ones in this link by korsbecker.
https://goscf.com/t/61708
5) Sc:53 Cream paper printing without C.F.
6) Sc:12a First athens printing (fine Impression)
7) Sc: 9c ? 17 ? Consecutive Athens printing (Must check if there
is relief in the white parts,especialy the cheeks.
8) Sc:43 Cream paper printing without C.F.
9) Sc:53 "
10) Sc: 29 Cleaned plates printing
11) Sc: 38? meshed paper?
12)Sc: 42a Dull olive green on Blue ,Meshed paper ?( Bronze we can exclude)
These are better Classifying with a Hellas Catalog.Scott omits a certain
number of colour variantes.Plus the Scott ordering is more complicated
I think.
__________________________________________________________________________
Photo Karamitsos, Bronze on Blue,Meshed paper

Hello Perf12,

Thanks again. I have added some additional photos for stamps 11 & 12, these were taken after dipping stamps in watermark fluid. I think stamp 12 shows the mesh but stamp 11 does not.

A few questions:

1. What does C.F. stand for
2. On stamp 6 I was leaning towards Scott 19 because of the color which I took to be yellow orange
3. I thought stamp 8 might be a forgery because of the lack of a break at the bottom of the first wavy line in the upper left spandrel
4. Is the relief in the white parts a physical relief or just an apparent relief

Thanks again for your help

Stamp 11 front


Stamp 11 back


Stamp 12 front


Stamp 12 back

Hi: Then I would place no.11 as scott:16 Consecutive Athens printing.
No.12 is meshed ,so that's good so Scott:42a.
On no.6 if it has blue paper I think you are right.
The relief is physical.The white parts have a relief due to the
printing.Check them out sideways with slanting light.These can be
found in the Consecutive Athens Printings especialy the early printings.
CF stands for Control Figures or numbers, here explained:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_(Greek_stamp)

Thanks Perf12, you have been very helpful. I think a number of these stamps I will return because they were misidentified, but I will keep a few to add to my collection.

What did you think of my idea that stamp 8 was a forgery?

Thank you again -David

I dont't see no.8 as a forgery.
all your stamps are in poor condition;trimmed or small tears.A few
dollars worth.Great for study.Depends on the kind of collection one does.Better to buy these stamps with nice margins.

Very astute observation on my collection. I have been a general stamp collector for almost 60 years, and have about 100,000 different stamps. My starting goal was to have the largest collection, worth virtually nothing*. I think that I am succeeding. :)

*with a few exceptions for Scandanavia and US

I like the idea about building up a collection with damaged,torn,thinned,trimmed and
what have you.The problem of identification is the same,and one can know just as much
as a collector who spents a 1000 times more on F-VF stamps.
I suppose collecting like that can be less burdensome and just as much fun,and you
can even get too be an expert...
One exception in the Philatelic world.Lion stamps of Afghanistan: