Difference Between Printer's Waste And Expensive Errors

hello,

I don't have any stamp that I think it is either the one or the other, but always wondered about this topic.

Over the years I saw a lot of stamp printing / perforation errors selling for thousands of dollars and then there are somewhere in forums or also in auction houses the printer's waste stamps.

Of course I understand in theory that the printer's waste was just production errors that were not sold in the public but somebody just found them or kept them.

This works fine in my logic when I think about the moment when this happened. But it does not work anymore when I think about some decades or more later.

How can anybody say if a stamp was printer's waste 50 years ago or not?
Sure, if a stamp was used it is more likely that it is an error, but still also printer's waste could have been used by a collector.

For example, there are double printings, printed on revers, inverted centers, overprint errors, which are respected as errors, but other stamps are just called printer's waste :).

How can there be any evidence that an error stamp was not once printer's waste?
(and for example sold from the printer to some "discoverer")

Genuine EFOs have either documented provenance or at least a plausible story. There are stamps in a gray area. For example, the yellow H flag stamp. They come used from Indianapolis, but there is no record of them being sold over a post office counter.

Items sold via normal sales channels to the public are considered genuine. Items taken from the trash of a printer and then sold on the black or brown market is printer's waste. Used here "printer's waste" is a term of art.

When stamps are being produced, there will always be some waste material which does not fit the definition of product which meets deliverable condition. Such material is, under normal circumstances, marked, identified and the culled from the production run, set aside to be destroyed and then in fact destroyed.




When discovered, even 50 years ago, it is studied to determine how the items got to the public as well as how they were created in the first place.

How well records are kept and searched depends on the actual printer. Some are very careful, such as the US BEP (Bureau of Engraving and Printing) others not so much with a range all between.

True errors, not freaks nor oddities, in USA material are listed in the Errors Book. Also the EFO Collectors Club concerns itself with such things. https://www.efocc.org/

EDIT: EFO, Errors, Freaks and Oddities are all terms of art with specific definitions in philately and do vary by country.

Brown market? Well it is waste paper I suppose.

There is a third category of "mistakes" that were deliberately created with Russia being the prime example. Russia pumped out endless types of EFO materials mainly through its philatelic bureau but by other channels as well. These still can command large premiums because even though intentional, quantities were limited and they have become listed in specialist catalogs.

Liberia is another offender but different from Russia in that an entrepreneur from outside the government was involved. It deserves it's own novel.

Please start or link a thread dedicated to this subject. It sounds very fascinating.

The US 4¢ Pan American invert (Scott 296a) was an intentionally printed error - catalog value is $75,000

Scott US 4806d, the non-inverted Jenny souvenir sheet from 2013 is a spectacular example of a modern deliberate "error".

A special automatic distribution was done to all post offices. Pre-orders and re-orders through stamp distribution offices or centers were not allowed once original automatic distribution quantities were sold. A total of 13,200,600 stamps were printed, which translates into 2,200,100 souvenir sheets of six. They were printed six souvenir sheets at a time, and their position on the plate is noted on back of each. The sheets were sold individually wrapped in cellophane, which collectors questioned at the time of issue.

The reason for the odd quantity and cellophane wrapping was revealed shortly after the release of the souvenir sheets, when an upright example was discovered by a collector in Ontario, Canada. The USPS then revealed that 100 had been created and randomly seeded throughout their distribution system. The cellophane wrappers were used to prevent searching through stocks for the upright designs—souvenir sheets with opened cellophane were not returnable. As of late 2023 only forty sheets of the 100 had been found and registered.

Wouldn't it depend on whether the undetected error was sold to the public through the post office (finished expensive error) versus it got out through the back door of the printer (unfinished printer's waste)? That's why it is important to know how certain first philatelic "finds" were discovered or made since they present an interesting background story.

Liberia went overboard and their "errors" can be obtained very cheaply as more were produced than the market wants.

Some items can easily be IDed as printer's waste such as imperf block of tamps that were only released as coils. Also items in poor condition are suspect and likely to have come from waste.

As for US??? Can you enlighten here??

The US has several errors of "imperf blocks of stamps that were only released as coils." They are from coil rolls that were not split.

Again,supply and demand, leads to a value of an item. A good story helps as well as that helps drive demand.

Now I will point our this is a general, not country specific topic, EFOs. I agree with that because, EFOs are all production related issues based upon the printing methods used, which really doesn't change by country of issue. This even extends to post production issues such as the oddities know as bisects or other divided stamps.

Just an observation but world wide, there are thousands of different inverts but only a small group with astronomical values.

EFO Collector's Club: https://www.efocc.org/

For US Printer's waste, examples are mentioned in footnotes in the Scott's US Specialized Catalog when appropriate.

I suspect that a lot more than 40 of the $2 non invert have been found. They were not declared, possibly to prevent tax inquiries. To expect that 60% of the known quantity are still unfound seems highly unlikely. At this point 5-10 seems much more likely.