Need Help For 2 Greek Cover

Hello, I am a newby… can someone help me please?
i am I Young italian thematic philatelic. My theme is "Europe from the myth to the reality". I have 2 beatifull covers from greece but I need help to describe them (please,if you have time help me).
The first one is a letter from Athina (i think athen) to Florence dated 23/12/1955. It has 400 lepta values stamps and I think it was sent by air mail. (the automatic cancel is "athina 23/12/1955 Avion"). Can you tell me if the rates is correct and how much was sending this letter from athen to florence (like: 100 lepta to foreign country + 300 lepta for air mail)… every information you can give me will be very appreciate and helpfull!

the second cover is reccomanded letter from Xania (Crete) to zurigh dated 18/04/1912 (swiss) It has 4 drachma stamps on it… same here can tell me something about the postal history of the period and the rates?


Many thanks,
Danilo

Hello and welcome Danilo,
Can you post some clear pictures or scans of the two covers. That would help a lot for anyone that could help answer your questions.
Best regards,
Will

Some info on Crete.perhaps some ideas(Auction)

http://www.stampcircuit.com/Philate...ext=&page=94

Hello Danilo,

I would be very interested to see your Crete cover if you can post a scan of it.

Hello and thanks to everybody.
This is the first one from crete


Can you tell if it was in correst postal rate? How much was the raccomandation cost from crete to swiss in 1912 ? And how much was the foreign country shipping cost in that year?

All help you can give me to describe this cover and its postal history will be very appreciate.

many thanks
Danilo

and here the second cover.



Many thanks,
Danilo

The first cover has the 1904 issue.The stamps on this cover are of very late usage(1912);
The "ELLAZ" overprint on a block of 4 is quite rare on cover;worth a few hundred euros maybe.From 1897 - 14 Febuary 1913 Crete had a provisional govermnent.4 Drachma would seem the correct rate.
The 1904 Issue: A. Galinos collection below:

Hello Danilo,

Thank you for posting images from your Crete cover.

The one drachma stamp was originally issued in 1905 in the set shown in perf12's post.

This version with the large ELLAS overprint was issued in 1910.

These stamps with the large overprint were the last regular postage stamps to be issued by Crete.

The charge for registration was 25 lepta.

The international letter rate was 25 lepta for up to 20g plus 15 lepta for each additional 20g above this, so the weight steps would be 25 lepta, 40 lepta, 55 lepta etc.

I believe the cover is philatelic given the high weight that would require such postage.

The postmark is the original XANIA type which shows the time the mail was picked up.

I believe around 16 different times are recorded. In this case it looks like one o'clock in the morning.

Hello perf12,

It's interesting to see the Galinos item which has a very similar in format to a presentation card the Crete post office had printed by the stamp printer, Bradbury Wilkinson.

Here's the card in my collection:

Europe seated on a bull is frequent in many coins in antiquity.The stamps discription is
Europa seated on a bull (Gortyna coin).It looks more like an orthodox priest too me.It
does not have any characteristics of "Europa" in ancient coinage.

An example from a Gortyna coin with Europe seated on a bull:

A Orthodox priest from Crete:

_____________________________________________________________________________________
So my theory is at the time they combined the Cretan bull symbol with the Orthodox man.
Symbolic of a new era of an independant Crete with Greek Orthodoxy…
So,how does that sound?

thank you very much to all. And can you help me also for the second one with zeus?

Thanks,
Danilo