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Preview of Stamps Catalogue: VOLUME 2

THESSALY

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1898 stamps in octagonal form

20 pa red
(genuine stamps, the cancels could be forged)

  10 pa green
  20 pa red
  1 Pi blue
  2 Pi orange
  5 Pi lilac

These stamps have perforation 13 1/2.

Value of the stamps

 
vc = very common
c  = common
*  = not so common
** = uncommon
 
*** = very uncommon
R   = rare
RR  = very rare
RRR = extremely rare
Value Unused Used Remarks
10 pa c *  
20 pa c *  
1 Pi * *  
2 Pi c *  
5 Pi c **  


(Part of a sheet of stamps, reduced size)

These stamps were issued during the Turkish occupation of Thessaly (northern part of Greece). The special thing about these stamps is that they were printed in this very unusual 8-sided design. 300.000 series were printed. These stamps were issued on 16 April 1898, they did not serve very long, since the last known date of usage is 9 June 1898. After the Turkish army left Thessaly became Greek territory again. The remainders of these stamps were sold to two dealers in Paris and Vienna.

Forgeries

Only one type of forgeries is known. It can easily be recognized:


(left forgery, right genuine stamp)

  1. In the left hand side border the cord is turning in the wrong direction.
  2. The perforation is 11 1/2 instead of 13 1/4 for the genuine stamps
  3. The figures of value are different.


Forgery


(Forged cancels "Pharsala Avr. 22-98" on forged stamp and "Volos Mai 2-98")

Forged cancels on genuine stamps

It seems that roughly half of all the cancelled stamps has a forged postmark. A genuine postmark consists of two concentric circles with the town name between the circles and the date inside the inner circle, the diameter of the inner circle is 20 mm in the genuine stamps. The diameter of the inner circle of the forged stamps is smaller and varies from 18 3/4 to 19 1/4 mm, so the distance between the two circles becomes larger. The colour of the genuine cancels is black or dark blue and the cancels are mostly clear. The forged cancels are in a lighter shade of grey or dark grey. Dark blue cancels can be considered genuine. Violet cancels are probably forgeries. the following cancel dates are always forgeries:

  1. Domokos .Avr. 16-98
  2. Pharsala Avr. 22-98
  3. Trikhala. Mai 2-98
  4. Volos Mai 2-98
  5. Kalabaka Mai 5-98


Forgery with forged "KALABAK MAI 5 98" cancel.

Copyright by Evert Klaseboer