plagueonhobby

One of my favorite examples of printer's waste is the pheasant booklet issued in April 1988. Vertical pairs, imperforate between showed up. At first they were thought to be rare; later we learned that hundreds of pairs existed. It's odd for a booklet pane pair to exist imperforate between, i.e. with perforations on all exterior sides, as in the illustration on the left. Such errors are usually the result of a foldover. Normally, a booklet pair possesses straight edges on two or more sides. But pheasant pairs showed up with exterior perfs on all sides. Soon after the appearance of the exterior-perfs-all-around variety, vertical pairs, imperforate horizontally began to appear, such as illustrated at center. This is the way one would normally expect to find a booklet pane imperf "between" error. It seemed oddly coincidental that the margins bordering the imperforate straight edges of these pairs mirror those on the imperf between variety. One can only assume that the proprietor of the original batch decided to create the second variety by trimming perfs off the imperf between variety. And that is likely the case. Then, completely imperf pairs showed up, as illustrated on the right. No surprise here. One could just as easily trim the perforations off all the sides. No way to prove otherwise, but the so-called completely imperf variety was touted as "very rare." Where one variety initially existed, two additional varieties mysteriously surfaced -- a triple-play opportunity to fleece the unsuspecting.

At first I didn't give much thought to printer's waste. It was just out there. By "at first," I mean 1986, the year I began work in earnest on compiling listings for the error catalogue I would publish that May. I had come across only about half a dozen instances of printer's waster among several hundred possible catalogue listings. I made the decision to include them in the book, noting that they were printer's waste, for the sake of providing complete information. Besides, they didn't appear to be much of a factor in the marketplace.

My attitude toward printer's waste has changed. Now, I view it as a plague on the hobby, trash not worthy of a serious collector's time or money. I didn't used to be so judgmental. In fact, I prided myself on being open minded. But the proliferation of printer's waste since the publication of that first error catalogue has altered my thinking. Printer's waste began to show up with increasing frequency during the late 1980s and continued well into the 1990s. At first, in many cases the material could pass as a legitimate error. Later, items showed up in forms that could not have legitimately made their way out of a printing plant -- imperforate gutter multiples, booklet panes in blocks larger than issued, combination imperforate and color-omitted errors.

Printer's waste often exists in quantities far greater than advertised. Rarity is key to value, and invariably, printer's waste is touted as "very rare" when it first makes an appearance, regardless of the true quantity existing. Those who push this kind of material don't care about misrepresenting its origin or rarity. They're just philatelic con men for whom extracting the maximum profit is the only consideration. Their unscrupulous behavior is injurious to the hobby. It is unfair to all collectors of legitimate errors.