Released in 2005, and linked with The Monstrous Regiment (the theme for the Clarecraft event at which they were launched) was the first Discworld Stamp booklet. It contained a pane of six Military Penny Patricians. The intent being that the boys on the front line in the skirmish between Borogravia and Zlobenia get mail from loved ones back home. At least the Ankh-Morpork contingent were boys! Each booklet carries a message from Lady Sybil Rankin. These are the Field Post in reverse.

The stamp is noticeably different to the regular penny stamps, apart from the upper corners showing crossed swords. These look awkward to me as they face point downwards. The background is also a bit more cream than the other Patrician stamps. On top of that, the print quality is sharper, more sparkly, than the other in-house Patricians, but not quite up to the Enschede printed stamps. There is nothing to suggest that any different print process was used, or different paper. So the quality must be down to refinement of the settings for the print. There is also one rather cryptic difference between the Campaign Patricians and all the others (including those issued in the three subsequent years). Look at the crossed loops that run down the sides. The Campaign stamp has diamonds at the top both right and left. The others match the original Penny Black in having an X at the left and a diamond at the right. The reason for this is unclear, but it does suggest that these Campaign Patricians were ‘rebuilt’ from the original source files.

 Campaign
 Others  ..

Because of the straight cut edges to the pane of six stamps one could break up a pane to create single stamps with imperforate edges - top only, bottom only, top and right, and bottom and right. And there are Sports. One stamp on each pane has the crossed swords the other way up, but this can be in any of the six positions. So you can collect all six panes to complete the sports, or you can go for four sports based on the imperforate sides.

 Common
 Sport   ..

The panes are cut from larger sheet, arranged four panes across and three deep. With a sport at each position on the pane, equal numbers of each sport were produced. In order to have a wide margin on the left for the panes to be affixed to the booklet, the panes were arranged with two gutters and with the panes alternating upright and inverted. The was room at the bottom for a row of envelope stickers to be cut out and used elsewhere.

If you still have your magnifiers out from looking at the side designs, take a close look at the selvedge on the panes in your collection, where they are stuck to the booklet cover. There is a sport to be found, in the form of a small white circle, barely perceptible against the cream background. Yes, this was a deliberate attempt to fox even the most eagle-eyed collector.

A few imperforate stamps, cut from a sheet like that pictured above, have been used as postal decoration. These two pairs both feature sports. One is from a pane, and one cut from adjacent panes with a gutter between.