What we do not know
Every dataset has holes. Most do not show them. Here are ours: which years, why, what has already been searched without result, and exactly which document closes each one.
Price documentation grade, by year
- A · documented price (7)
- B · anchor or estimate (9)
- C · interpolation (23)
- D · no source (12)
11
consecutive years with no price at all (1978-1988)
12
years with no price, of 51
12
years with no tax scale
Gyro price
1976 · 1978-1988Years with no primary price at all. The figure you see is interpolated between two distant documented points, and the chart draws those years dashed.
During the price-control era prices were set by prefectural market orders that were never digitised in one place. Souvlaki was not an item the statistical office tracked: the retail price tables of the period list bread, meat and oil, not prepared food.
What closes a year
- A prefectural market order listing a souvlaki or wrap price
- A Gazette issue B of the period setting catering prices
- A shop price list, photo or print, with a date
- A newspaper piece of the time quoting a price, not a retrospective
Income tax
1976-1987Years with no documented tax scale. The disposable-income scenario says "not modelled" instead of showing zero, because zero would be a claim.
The system before law 1828/1989 was structurally different: there was no zero-rate bracket, and in its place sat amounts subtracted from the tax itself. Computing a year needs BOTH the scale AND the tax-free amounts, which were re-indexed every year by a separate ministerial decision.
What closes a year
- Articles 8 and 9 of law-decree 3323/1955 as they stood before law 1828/1989
- An annual decision indexing the tax-free amounts, Gazette issue B
- A law ratifying such a decision in an annex, which is how 1989 and 1990 were found
What has already been searched
So the same work is not repeated, and so nobody sends a source that has already been ruled out.
ELSTAT digital library, Monthly Statistical Bulletins 1976-1998
Nothing2026-09-02The Athens-Piraeus retail price table lists bread, poultry, olive oil, cheese, potatoes and sugar per kilo, monthly. No prepared food, no souvlaki. The route works and the issues download, but the item was never tracked.
A forum post about 1993
Rejected2026-09-02"Souvlaki cost 120 drachmas at worst." It does not even say whether it means a skewer or a wrap, which are different products at different prices. Not used: once such a figure is in, it no longer looks different from the solid ones.
Two independent search rounds for 1978-1988 prices
Nothing2026-09-01Not a single primary price. Searches mostly returned retrospective articles and, increasingly, our own index frozen at an old release.
Laws that ratify ministerial decisions in an annex
Closed years2026-09-02It worked. Two indexation decisions of 26.1.1990 survived because they were ratified in the annex to law 1914/1990, and together with law 1828/1989 they closed 1988 through 1991. For earlier years no such law was located.
The tax-circular archive, 1976-1988
Nothing2026-09-02Effectively empty before 1988: 1976 has a single entry and 1985 three. The 1988 and 1989 listings contain no circular carrying a scale.
The Government Gazette archive
Partial2026-09-02The search takes a year, an issue and a Gazette NUMBER, not content. Without the decision's number from elsewhere it does not help. Laws are findable, ministerial decisions are not.
Sources that do not count
These sites republish our own index, often frozen at an old release. A search for a historical price returns them, so they arrive in good faith as a "source". A circular reference is not a second, independent source.
- oneman.gr
- financialreport.gr
- vradini.gr
- dnews.gr
- indicator.gr
- tilestwra.gr
- ot.gr
- rua.gr
If you have something
Anyone who turns up with a document that closes even one of these years goes into the sources under their own name. The best thing that can happen to this project is not that people talk about it. It is that someone turns up and proves one of its years wrong.