'....The discoverer of this piece was Mr. N. S. Nicolaides, who described it in his book Histoire de la Creation de Timbre Grec et Description Complete de Toutes les Emissions as follows:
“If one examines this piece with a strong magnifying glass, he will notice the details that we are going to describe below. The artist, Mr. Albert Barre, used an essay made by his father.
This essay, very rare in the collection of French essays, is the 20 centimes black Empire of 1853 on animal skin. After having glued it on white cardboard, the artist removed the head of Napoleon III and, in its place, drew in India ink the head of Mercury, whose execution was marvelous.
Then, with the same ink, he crossed out the inscriptions “EMPIRE FRANC.” and “20 c. POSTES 20 c.” from the top and the bottom. To the right of the essay, he placed the following inscriptions which would replace the preceding ones: “ΕΛΛ. ΓΡΑΜΜ.” for the top and “ ΛΕΠΤ ” for the bottom,
leaving on each side a space where the values would be inscribed.
All these details are seen very clearly in the original. There can be no doubt about it. The first stamps of Greece are indeed relatives of the first French stamps. The irrefutable proof exists from now on.
It is believed that this first essay of Albert Barre was used to obtain approval from the Greek Government of the design of the first Greek stamps. Following is my translation of the article in the July 1864 issue of the French journal, Magasin Pittoresque...."
Note: This article is adapted from an article that was published in the June 1987 issue of The Report journal of the Hellenic Philatelic Society of Chicago.
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