The 1861 20 lepta plate of the Large Hermes Head had been dismantled sometime at the dawn of the 20th century, as indicated by Tryphon Constantinides in his Etude in 1933. The pieces were initially kept in the National Printing House during the early years and subsequently in the Philatelic and Postal Museum following its establishment in the 1970s.
Out of the 150 clichés, 121 have survived to date, the rest are still missing, since at least the days of the Etude, where the missing pieces are clearly mentioned.
In 2019, following a NOTOS 2021 OC inquiry at the Philatelic and Postal Museum, permission was granted to attempt the reconstruction of the plate. Stephanos Calliga, a renowned connoisseur of the Large Hermes Heads, undertook the task to study thoroughly and exhaustively the 121 clichés in order to plate them.
On 14 October 2020 he had verified the plate position of all 121 loose pieces.
20 lepta stamp | 20 lepta plate cliché |
The 20 lepta reconstructed 121-cliché (recto) |