Crete: 1905 Revolutionary Govt Lithographs.

Reviving this thread with this interesting set of imperf pairs (Yvert 9-14). Came buried in a Central American lot - previous owner misfiled it under Costa Rica, so not too far off from Crete :)

Nice find.

Hello gmot,

These are very nice examples and all appear to be originals rather than reprints.

@niglec - well, that's certainly nice to hear, I know Crete is a minefield of reprints & forgeries. As I don't collect Crete, will be selling these, once I do some research on them.

Cherrystone has this for sale. Is it genuine?

Hi rogdcam,

I'm not sure but I would guess this Cherrystone stamp is a reprint.

I would expect an original stamp to have cleaner printing of the mesh pattern in the top section.

The reprints were created by the original printer from the original transfers but with new stones.

I wonder whether any original stamps exist with the king's head inverted?

In the eyes it looks life less…compared to the others

That's very interesting.

My Greek catalogues are now rather old but for what it's worth my 2005 Vlastos catalogue doesn't mention either the perforated 1dr or 2dr stamps as existing with any of the centre/head errors but it does list three errors (double centre, inverted centre and without centre) for both the imperf 1dr and 2dr.

I have never seen examples of any of these errors close up to check whether they were originals or reprints.

I suspect in either case they would be printer's waste or deliberate errors but I would like to learn more.

My 2008 Hellas (Karamitsos) catalogue doesn't mention any of these centre errors.

That's my erroneous statement that nigelc is quoting.

nigelc, you are correct that the listed varieties only involve the imperfs. I have deleted my post.

I have a 2012 Vlastos vol. 2. What clarified things for me was the recent reported change of the imperf center inverted variety from catalog number 46Aaab to 46Ab. I suppose I'm too used to catalog listings being more obvious since a subvariety of something like (say) 5a is normally listed in Vlastos exactly as "5ab".

In any case, it's interesting to see the price on this since it cataloged 20 euros (2012). There's been a big price rise on cinderellas lately, but still.

@nigelc or @hy-brasil - would one of you be so kind as to tell what the Vlastos catalogue values the imperf set at? I don't have a copy of that catalogue as yet, and Yvert only values the perf set. Thanks!

Yes, the numbers are a mess in my 2005 edition.

They appear in the following order:

46 - 1dr perf

47A - 1dr imperf. This clearly is a misprint and should have been 46A.

Then come the 1dr imperf centre errors aa, ab and ac.

The complete number for any of these varieties is not explicit so could be any of 47Aaa, 47Aa, 47aa etc.

I believe logically these should be 46Aa, 46Ab and 46Ac.

47 - 2dr perf

47A (again!) - 2dr imperf

This is followed by the same three imperf centre varieties.

Hi gmot,

The 2006 Vlastos prices for the imperf set of six are 45 euros unmounted mint (MNH) and 22 euros mounted mint (MH).

The individual prices for these are 2, 2, 2, 2, 20 & 20 euros unmounted mint and 1, 1, 1, 1, 10 & 10 euros mounted mint.

@niglec - thank you, most helpful!

~Greg

gmot and all, the catalog values were unchanged in the 2012 Vlastos.

Thanks hy-brasil!