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Introduction
The
Glory Issue of Greece (1945) was printed and circulated on March 1, 1945
to honour the liberation of Greece from the Axis Forces at the end of
World War II. It comprises of
a set of eight stamps (values of 1, 3, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200
drachmas) of which the last three values were issued on August 10, 1945.
All
values depict the same representation, namely the allegoric figure of
Glory painted by the renown Greek artist Nicholas Gysis (1842-1901).
This figure was first depicted on the stamp of the 25 drachmas,
value of the Historical Issue of Greece (1937).
Printed by lithography on white glossy paper with the Crown
watermark, bears a 12 ½ X 13
½ perforation. It has a
clear symbolic meaning: The
original painting represents Glory lightly walking on the ruins of the
newly independent Greece (1830) after four centuries of Ottoman
occupation. Here, the stamp
allegorically places her on the ruins of liberated Greece after almost
four years of Axis occupation.
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