The third print of these TOA $1 stamps were notable for two new things. Firstly the now familiar BP CE AB sheet margin logo appeared with a Vetinari heads and a Falling Man separating the initials - one of Colin’s attention to details. However only four stamps per sheet will part have this in the margin adjacent to the stamp. The other 9 common stamps have black top or bottom selvedge.

The other difference was the appearance of four new sports. In fact a range of new sports were considered, probably from the imagination of Colin, and some of these made it to the point of being printed as part of trial sheets for selection and approval - four were selected, while the others appear on the Unissued Sports page. In 2005 Isobel Pearson wrote “Back in February, in order to use up the space on the bottom of the Tower of Art stamp sheets, Colin fitted in some extra sports.
There were 20 each of the following stamp:
Falling man - birds moved
Deeper Splash
Wind vane reversed
These stamps were kept until May when Colin did a reprint for us and this time included the following:
Falling man – birds moved 80
Deeper splash 40
Wind vane Reversed 40
Some of these sports (deeper splash) were introduced into the LBE’s in May and this month we have included some of the Reversed wind vane and Falling man – birds moved
I still hold some of each of these sports and in fairness to all our collectors there will be further reprints. “
“In the selvage below the main block of sixteen stamps, at right angles to them are two stamps. They are either, two 'falling man' or two 'splash'. The first batch could very well have all been 'falling man', hence the appearance a while back of those 'falling man' stamps with left and right white plain selvage. Now a batch of 'splash' sports have arrived. Same arrangement two stamps surrounded by selvage. They will start to appear soon as single stamps.
So, at any one time, a single A4 sheet has either 3 'falling man' and 1 'splash', or 1 'falling man' and 3 'splash'.“
Isobel further wrote:
Falling man birds moved 1 62
Falling man Birds moved 2 40
Weathervane reversed 60
Bigger splash 60 “
This arrangement can be seen on the unperforated sheet on the left. [Click on the image for an enlargement and see if you can identify the sports] It explains why sometimes there is a massive selvedge on the bottom of the four new sports. A look at the unperforated sheet from the original issue shows that the space at the bottom of the sheet had always been there. These third batch sheets still had the 14 common stamps and two original sports. There were two identical new sports per sheet, so totting up the number of sports produced we can positively say that the third run stamp sheets numbered 111, yielding 1554 common stamps (out of the 9100 total said to have been issued), and 111 each of the original sports (out of the 650 said to have been issued). Thus the stamps from the third run represent only 1 in 6 of the total issued. The primary purpose of this third print run merely to create more sports for collectors, with extra commons a by-product?
Interestingly Isobel tells us that these third run sheets were delivered in two batches. This opens the possibility that different printers or different technology may have been used for the two batches, but only an in-depth study of multiple copies of the new and rare sports - and who can do that?

The New Sports
These have been mentioned but so far have lacked a description.
The Bigger or Deeper Splash has a redrawing of the actual splash, marginally larger and closer to the shore. The Weathervane sport is simply that the vane on the roof of the dome points to the right rather than the left. The new Falling Man sports have the same falling man, but either the top bird on the left of the tower, or both birds to the left of the tower are redrawn to have more horizontal wings. This is the accepted version of the sports, but in true Mr. Edwards tradition, both of the two new Falling Man stamps have changes to all the three remaining birds. In both stamps the top right bird is rotated clockwise slightly, which makes it appear as if it is positioned very slightly higher. The Falling Man with the top left bird having horizontal wings also has a slight change to the bottom left bird, which is half rotated anti-clockwise towards the horizontal position. This explains their ‘Moving Birds’ tag which is used sometimes.

                                                 
     Weathervane                Bigger Splash                 Falling Man                    Falling Man  
                                                                           One bird                        Two Birds
    
     Click on larger images to see details

Reception
These new sports appeared unannounced and it took a while for collectors to work out how they were laid out on the sheets. Because they were printed in pairs at the bottom of the sheet some would have a left selvedge and the same sport with a right selvedge. This led to speculation as to where they were positioned on the sheet of 16, until it was revealed that the new sports were printed on the spare paper at the bottom of the sheets, with the old sports maintaining their old positions. This arrangement may have been guessed by some of them having a stamp sized selvedge below. It was the Weathervane sport which caught people out because it was easy to check for falling men and splashes, but that was unexpected. It was only the long selvedge that suggested that there may have been a sport present on the stamp. This long selvedge was not intended to be left attached to the stamps. A later print run actually had a ‘to be removed’ instruction printed on the sheet. I wonder if anyone has that in their collection.
It seems that behind the scenes some collectors were caught out by this and had just submitted their spare TOA stamps for GCTS purposes, and may have missed one of these, not realizing there were extra sports to be found. It seems that sometimes the long selvedge was removed before packing stamps into the LBEs, rather than folding it back. This situation may have led to changes to sport production on all future stamps; at least officially, because we do know what Colin Edwards may be capable of! But that may be another story.

Print Runs
It has been said that the sheets of stamps for the third prints were all prepared beforehand and then the four sports issued in stepwise fashion. This suggests that they were all printed as one batch. however examination of stamps from this third print run (as identified by the four new sports) shows that there are two shades of green present, one more yellowish and lighter than the other. Thus, evidently, there were two print runs. Perhaps the numbers required were increased after the first delivery of sheets. To complicate matters, the two unissued Open Door (as described on this page) sports are in yet another slightly different shade of green, suggesting a pre-release print run. There may have been sheets with the other four issued sports from this early printing with the other four sports, but I have not been able to identify any of these in my collection. Quite possibly these were printed only in small numbers and kept for archive purposes only.

BP CE AB
We are all familiar with the logo used on the early stamp sheets, incorporating the three initials separated by a Vetinari head and another small image. On these sheets the small image is the Falling Man, but is he always falling? I have heard stories of this moving and there has been a publicized instance of the Man rotated 180 degrees. Are there other examples where he faces left or right?

the Falling Man icon             and                  the flipped example

Update: I have reason to believe that the flipped example was used on the second prints, and the true falling man appeared on the third. This is based on the falling man appearing on images of a variety of printings that included additional stamps below the TOA block (typical of third print run), and a single sheet of TOA with no additional stamps having the flipped image. More data is required!