Aspioti-ELKA ( el, Ασπιώτη-ΕΛΚΑ) was one of the largest publishing and printing enterprises of

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. Founded in 1873 in

Corfu Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The isl ...

by Gerasimos Aspiotis as a factory manufacturing

playing cards A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a fi ...

under the name ''Elpis'' it eventually merged with the ''Etairia Lithographias kai Kytiopoieias Athenon'' (ELKA) and finally became ''Aspioti-ELKA''. In business for over a century, Aspioti-ELKA was the oldest company of its kind in Greece when it folded in 1997. During the post-WWII period Aspioti-ELKA was one of the largest employers in the printing and publishing business in Greece up to 1985. In 1992 the company was sold by the

National Bank of Greece The National Bank of Greece (NBG; el, Εθνική Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος) is a global banking and financial services company with its headquarters in Athens, Greece. 85% of the company's pretax preprovision profits are derived ...

to Jean Jacques Lesueur and in October 1997 it was declared bankrupt.

History

In 1873, Gerasimos Aspiotis founded a playing-card factory in Corfu under the name ''Elpis'' (Hope). In 1884, Aspiotis secured a contract with the government of

Charilaos Trikoupis Charilaos Trikoupis ( el, Χαρίλαος Τρικούπης; 11 July 1832 – 30 March 1896) was a Greek politician who served as a Prime Minister of Greece seven times from 1875 until 1895. He is best remembered for introducing the vote of c ...

as the sole manufacturer of playing cards for Greece. The cards were designed by Gerasimos Aspiotis' father Nikolaos Aspiotis who was a painter. In 1902 Konstantinos Aspiotis, son of Gerasimos, became the director of the company. Under the directorship of Konstaninos Aspiotis the company product line expanded to include the printing of bonds,

shares In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...

, advertisements, tickets and other similar products. After the

Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defe ...

and the subsequent expansion of Greek lands, the company increased its market share in an expanded internal market. Sales of its popular playing cards increased significantly and so did the company profits. In 1935 Liakos Iliopoulos became the director of the company and presided over further expansion which lasted until 1940. On 28 October 1940, the starting date of the

Greco-Italian War The Greco-Italian War (Greek language, Greek: Ελληνοϊταλικός Πόλεμος, ''Ellinoïtalikós Pólemos''), also called the Italo-Greek War, Italian Campaign in Greece, and the War of '40 in Greece, took place between the kingdom ...

, the Italian Air force bombed and destroyed the Aspioti-ELKA factory in Corfu. On that same day the Greek Government, after a lengthy delay of many months, granted Aspioti-ELKA permission to move its machinery and equipment from the Corfu factory to its

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

plant. The machinery moving permit came one day too late as the plant including the machinery now laid in ruins. The

keeps a large collection of the company material assets which were manufactured or acquired throughout its history. The bank collection includes stamps, banknotes, advertisements, architectural drawings, financial and statistical tables, an extensive collection of old machinery and other items.

References

Gallery

The following images are a small sample of postcards printed in three colour lithography by Aspiotis in Corfu, Greece. File:Aspiotis_104.jpg, File:Aspiotis_127.jpg, File:Aspiotis_139.jpg, File:Aspiotis_165.jpg, File:Aspiotis_188.jpg, File:Aspiotis_197.jpg, File:Aspiotis_206.jpg, File:Aspiotis_218.jpg, File:Aspiotis_239.jpg, File:Aspiotis_257.jpg, File:Aspiotis_266.jpg, File:Aspiotis_360.jpg, {{center, The Parthenon, sunset (c.1920) Playing card manufacturers Publishing companies of Greece Greek brands History of Corfu (city) Companies established in 1873 Companies disestablished in 1997 Companies based in Corfu Postcard publishers