ΛΙΜΕΝΑΡΙΑ Θάσου [Οι εγκαταστάσεις, το κτήριο διοίκησις και άποψη των ορυχείων καλαμίνης] / HAMIDIÉ Vue de..., île de Thassos [the facilities, administration building and view of the calamine mines] in two postcards (editor Librairie-Papeterie Le Soleil, numbers 2 and 3), both posted from CAVALLA 10.4.909 tying pairs of 10pa, sent to Freiberg, Germany, RRR & VF

Sender: Friedrich Speidel*

*Around 700 years after the lead/zinc/silver ore mining last carried out by the Byzantines on the island of Thasos, at the beginning of the 20th century there was international interest in resuming the exploitation of the rich ore deposits known from ancient times. However, due to the ownership structure, access to the island was difficult and the entrepreneurial risk was high.
Under these circumstances it was particularly remarkable that Friedrich Speidel Jr. from Pforzheim decided to exploit the calamine deposits on the island. In lengthy negotiations with the Turkish owner of the island, a concession and lease agreement for the Vouves deposit near Limenaria was concluded in 1903, which was extended to the Sotiras area in the northwest in 1905. The mining company Fr. Speidel Thasos-Pforzheim began mining, processing, calcining and shipping calamine ores and products in July 1903. The successful company had to be closed at the beginning of the First World War. The processing and smelting facilities in Limenaria were destroyed in 1916.
Friedrich Speidel took part in the auction of his confiscated company by the Greek government in 1925, but was outbid by a Belgian company.

The merits of Friedrich Speidel Jr. and his nephew, Julius Speidel, about the development and economic boom of the island at the time, and the findings from the deposits for the subsequent continuation of ore mining, are still unforgotten today. The Greek government intended to honor this by establishing a mining park with the disused mines, the dilapidated processing and smelting plant and the residential and administrative building, the Palati in Limenaria, as a museum. The project study to be prepared by the IGME with local and EU funds (€600,000) remained unpublished; the Speidel Palati remained in an unfinished state after it was gutted in 2005 and is now in unprotected dilapidation.