The clipping whose year we knew, and did not use

What it said

"PRICES RISE for souvlaki, kokoretsi and the oil-based dishes served in restaurants from Monday 7 November. Souvlaki in a pita goes from 65-70 GRD to 75-80 GRD."

No masthead, no date, no page number. A photograph circulating on social media.

How the year was found

In the whole drachma period, 7 November falls on a Monday only four times: 1977, 1983, 1988 and 1994.

Three are ruled out by the two documented price-control orders we already hold. 1977 gives ten drachmas, not sixty-five. 1983 would imply a 1989 price several times the one that year's order sets. 1994 would imply a price cut from the documented seventy-five of 1989.

That leaves 1988. And the post-increase price of 75-80 drachmas is exactly the price set by the order of May 1989.

And it landed inside

Our model for that year gave a price inside the clipping's range. The 1977 order carried forward on headline inflation alone, without using the 1989 anchor at all, landed inside it too.

So we had a finding that confirmed our model in a year where we had nothing. Exactly the kind of finding you want to accept without asking too many questions.

Why it did not go in

The year is our inference from internal evidence, not a statement by the document. A site that asks others to show their gaps does not anchor on an anonymous image.

1988 stayed without a source, the gap stayed at 10 years and no published figure changed. We also looked for the price-control order itself in the government gazette and did not find it: the 1989 order repeals all earlier ones without listing them, and the National Printing House offers no open full-text search of 1988 issues.

What we kept

The whole route, including the reasons for exclusion and the failure at the gazette, is recorded on the "What we do not know" page. Not to impress, but so the same work is not done twice and so someone can carry on from where we stopped.

If the newspaper and the date turn up, or the order itself, the clipping becomes an anchor and the gap shrinks further. Until then it stays a reading.