During the year that this Penny Patrician was in use, three more sports (in addition to the sheet sport) appeared in three limited edition LBEs. The first was found in the Valentines Day LBE, which limited to just 500. It featured the A and M, and the rose cartouches swapped. The second was found in the May Meet LBEs, and was appropriately showing Vetinari in a banded racing cap - the Racing Colours Sport. Lastly, for the Discworld Convention LBEs, lucky collectors would have a Blurred Face Sport

            
Valentines                       Racing Colours                    Blurry Face

Interestingly, these were printed in a block of six (two of each) resembling a miniature sheet as there was selvedge with text and images recycled from the regular stamp sheet. It could never be a miniature sheet because only partial text and image was used due to insufficient space. I suspect that this was designed to make collectors think that there was another full sheet containing these sports. This block of six stamps was contained with the last bit of space on the YotRP Tower of Art sheets, adjacent to the TOA block of sports.
I have seen pictures of this sheet perforated but unsplit, and wondered how did they do that? Because if you look, the perforation lines just do not line up; north to south or east to west. However each component of the sheet, the common TOAs, the TOA sports and the Patricians have all been available to collectors - the last two in very limited numbers. An image of the full sheet perforated can be created from the constituent parts. Each section has to be guillotined off and perforated independently.

These three sports had another lease of life in the first LBE of 2009, the Out with the Old LBE, when they were mixed with other ‘clear-out’ material going back to 2004 even. If you have a pair of different sports they came from this LBE.

In terms of print quality these digitally printed sports do not match the litho printings of the regular Penny Patricians. Even without any aids the difference is clear when the commons and these sports are seen side by side. Further below there is evidence that there were different digital print runs of these sheets, and that different papers were used.

There must have been some experimentation making up the sport mini-sheet as this rare imperforate example shows. This was probably never adopted because no tête-bêche pairs have been reported. Otherwise the usual layout was perforated and some of these escaped into the wild.

Under the Microscope
What has always puzzled me is that, after sprinkling the limited edition LBEs with presumably a given number of each sport, there were sufficient examples of each left over for a good supply to put in the Out with the Old LBEs. Surely there would have been the required amount printed early in 2007. Would there be sufficient ahead planning for the 2008 release, or was there a reprint of the sports for the later LBE? A close look at the A, the M, and the rosebud cartouches on some sports may reveal what had happened.

 
these two registration patterns seem to be comparable - complex colour shifts
 

 
likewise these two patterns are comparable - a rightward yellow shift
 

 
this pattern is distinct from the others - a leftward magenta shift

 
and different again - a leftward yellow shift

This suggests at least four print runs were required for the supply of these sports. This does not mean that there were later printings in order to include some in the Out with the Old LBEs, but that does remain a good possibility. These findings are backed up by a close examination of the paper and the gum. This is best seen on the reverse of the stamps with the upper row whiter than the lower se-tenant pair. Note that the paper used on the pair is more transparent with the stamp design easily visible through the paper. Taken together the evidence points to two or three print runs using different batches of paper. One thing to consider is whether any of the YotTR $1 Tower of Art stamps exist with the off-white semi-transparent paper. I have not found one (yet).

Looking again at these sports I have decided that the bulk of them were offset litho printed along with the bulk of the $1 TOAs. There may have been reprints done by the same method, but to the naked eye they are all the same, printed on paper with a clear shiny gum. However a last batch of TOAs was required and this was printed digitally on paper with a matt and slightly coloured gum. Because that printing also yielded more Patrician Sports these were added to the Out With The Old LBEs as a bonus. Thus there are more than 200 of each sport, but only 200 each were the originals.

The difference between the litho and digital printing can be see from the fine text decorating the margins of the mini-sheet. The digital at the bottom of this image is clearly poorer resolution especially noticeable on the cross bar of the H which is reduced to a series of dots.

Before anyone queries it, this most unlike the QV ivory heads, where though a mirrored head could be seen on the reverse of some stamps, that was the result of dye leeching into the paper causing it to change colour where colour was most intense.

Finally, these three zoom-in images demonstrate the difference in the printing between the Patricians from the the extra sports, and the sheets of unissued sports, and those from the regular sheets respectively. I think these show increasingly good resolution of the print from left to right.

The ‘red shift’ printing can be seen in the tete-beche mini-sheets. This example must have come from one