25c sábanas

Besides serial letters the 25c is known with different printer’s imprint, different abbreviations for ‘Número’, different sized numerals, different coloured seals and a variety of control letters. As the later dos caritas issue did not have a 25c value, these fractional sábanas continued to be issued until July 1915.

The sequence appears to have been:

The very first issues had ‘SERIE A’ (25c), ‘SERIE B’ (50c) and ‘SERIE C’ ($1) as part of the print. Later issues just had ‘SERIE’ with the letter added (as part of the numbering?).

The change in control codes from letters of the alphabet with pseudo-Roman numbers to letters of the alphabet with three or two letter codes no doubt took place at the same time as the changes in the dos caritas. This would suggest that the first of this group dated to July-September 1914 and the later to November-December 1914.

T-GDE obviously stands for 'Tesoreria General del Estado'.

For the later CC and DD series the date sequence is obvious. 200,000 and 125-M (125,000?) may be print runs: E and 2E may be emisión and segunda emisión; T, L, E and S may refer to different machines or locations.

One can note the progression of the Tesorería seal over time. The rough original seal was replaced by a finer seal with a break across the ‘O’ of ‘TESORERIA’. This then developed a crack in the rim at 1 o’clock.