Greece
This was the first European state to break away. Greece had been under Ottoman rule for nearly 400 years before declaring independence in 1821. The struggle took six years before the establishment of a Greek State and then until 1947 before unification was complete.
We have covered many highlights of Greek philately in previous issues, including the Hermes Heads, the first two Olympic Games sets, the Second World War inflation issues and the Return of the Dodecanese Islands. What else is there to collect?
After the Hermes Heads, Greece stopped printing all its own stamps and its next definitive set was by Perkins Bacon. It features the god Hermes, with the top values in metallic ink – and it’s another for the specialist. There are two types of paper, two dies made of values up to 50l, perforation varieties including imperf pairs and numerous shades.
The 1911 set which followed is almost as complex: rouletted and printed by both recess and lithography.
The reunification of Greece took a giant step forward with the first Balkan War. Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war on the Turkish Empire and won.
This resulted in a mass of overprints for the newly-acquired territories. It also inspired a set of 16 stamps marking the occupation of Macedonia, Epirus and the Aegean Islands, plus a single stamp celebrating the union with Crete; this was only issued on the island itself.
The Great
