You selected "a. Great Britain"
You must be considered a sage in philatelic circles. How curious though, there is not one word of English on these stamps. They have a most unusual history.
The island of Crete is considered to be the cradle of Greek civilization, but for centuries, from 1669 to 1898, it was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The great powers stepped into a Cretan civil war in 1898 and the island was declared an autonomous republic. For that year of occupation, however, the British, French, Italian, and Russian forces on the island issued their own postage stamps. The 10 para brown shown here was a British issue. The Greek inscription reads: "POSTAGE FOR THE DISTRICT OF HERAKLION" (the area under British administration).
The ten para blue is a forgery. The distinguishing mark is the small circle with a dot above the numerals. In the original, the circle is closed; in the counterfeit, the circle is not joined.
The stamps were probably forged by the very company that produced the originals, Gundman & Stangel of Athens, Greece. Some of the forgeries made their way into the hands of one of the greatest stamp charlatans of all time, Francois Fournier of Geneva, Switzerland. . Fournier unabashedly made copies of famous stamps and advertised in leading newspapers, priding himself as a benefactor to the average collector who could not afford the real thing. Fournier also manufactured some of the British occupation issues of Crete himself
Was the ten para pictured actually in the hands of the notorious Fournier? There is a way of telling, by gauging the perforation. The original stamps were perforated at gauge 11-1/2.
Our twenty para blue is an 11, the same gauge as those manufactured by Fournier. A philatelic discovery-- of the darker kind.
From under the heel of the Ottoman Empire to its union with Greece, follow Crete's political evolution through its stamps.
An Odyssey of Crete, through stamps
