Crete, Rethymnon

1st March 1900

↓ - Changes of Administration

Europe

29 a-c


British Admin	Russian Admin	Provisional Govt.
1898 Sc1 SG-B1	1899 Sc10 SG-R1	1900 Sc50 SG1

Description	Scott#	SG#
British Admin, Candia Province
20 piasters violet	1	B1	handstamped, no wmk, imperf
other designs and values	2-5	B2-B5
Russian Admin, Rethymon Province
1 metallik green	10	R1	handstamped, imperf
other designs and values	11-46	R2-R37
Provisional Govt. of Crete
1 lepta violet brown	50	1	engraved, perf 14
5l green	51	2
10l red	52	3
20l carmine rose	53	4

Crete was under Turkish control from C17th. After a series of rebellions against Turkey, British, French, Italian and Russian troops were stationed on different zones on the island.


French Offices	Italian Offices
1902 Sc1† SG1	1900 Sc1‡ SG1	1900 Sc2 SG2

Specific stamps were issued for the British (Candia Province) and Russian (Rethymnon Province) zones in 1898 and 1899 respectively.
Stamps for the French post offices (listed by Scott under France) were not issued until 1902 and the Italian offices used overprinted Italian stamps from 1900. Austro-Hungarian offices were also in existance using their general issue for the Turkish Empire but those used in Crete are only identifiable by the postmark.

† Listed in Scott as France, Offices in Crete.
‡ Listed in Scott as Italy, Offices in Crete, all of the stamps other than the #1, are overprinted "LA CANEA".

Union with Greece

1908 Sc85 SG32

Meanwhile, in 1900, the provisional government of Crete issued a set of nine stamps six designs, the first four of which (Sc50-53, SG1-4) are listed in the table. The others were first issued overprinted with the word "provisional" in Greek printed in red or black: only in 1901 were these issued without the overprint

Gibbons lists 1905 stamps for the Revolutionary Assembley but Scott states that these “were issued for sale to collectors and, so far as can be ascertained, were of no postal value whatever”.

In 1908 the Cretan parliament announced union with Greece and in 1913, after the Balkan Wars, it became a Greek province and started to use Greek stamps.