The LBE Sports

     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 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, 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.

There must have been some experimentation making up the sport mini-sheet as this imperforate example shows. This was probably never adopted because no tęte-bęche pairs have been reported.

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, 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


likewise these two patterns are comparable


this pattern is distinct from the others

       This suggests at least three 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.