Republic of the Philippines - Stamps and Postal History
Philippine Philatelic Library
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Originally published in the January 1996 issue of the Journal of Philippine Philatelic Society (England).
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FIRST MAJOR
ERROR BY AMSTAR DISCOVERED
Starting the second quarter of 1989, Amstar Company Inc. became the sole
security printer of Philpost, and has been printing every single postage
stamp and souvenir sheet of the Philippines since then. Before this,
Amstar got a contract in 1987 to print the P1 Wenceslao Vinzons
definitive. At that time, ,they did not possess a perforating machine
yet, so part of what was printed had to be perforated by the Government
Printing Office while the rest, by APONEDA.
Amstar has remained the exclusive security printer because of its track
record of strict security and supervised revisions that resulted in zero
major errors reaching the philatelic market. Of course the occasional
offset, shifted colors, foldovers and paper creases, shifted
perforations and double perforations are still found, but no major
errors whatsoever. We have not heard of a single missing color or
imperforate error on stamps printed by Amstar.
But recently, a major error had been discovered and this was probably
caused by a mix-up or the ignorance of some employees of Amstar.
As we now know, Amstar is allowed a spoilage rate of 10% for stamps and
30% for souvenir sheets. This means that when they receive an order for
1,000,000 stamps, they are given enough security paper to print
1,100,000 stamps, and they are expected to deliver the ordered quantity.
If the spoilage exceeds the allowed percentage and they have to use more
security paper to fill the order, then they have to pay 0.5% of the
contract price as penalty. Before, the printer delivers only the ordered
quantity, and all remainders, whether spoiled or not, are destroyed.
However, since 1989, the Post Office has been accepting more good stamps
found among those from the overrun to take care of possible spoilages,
and they pay only 50% of the original cost for these stamps.
These additional quantities are termed “renegotiated quantities”, and
most of these are being used for postage, because more often than not,
these renegotiated stamps are delivered long after the six-month sales
period for commemorative and special stamps had elapsed. Amstar
accumulates different issues and delivers them altogether only 2-4 times
in a year.
Obviously, the renegotiated quantities vary from stamp to stamp, and
sometimes there are none at all. Amstar delivers only in amounts of
thousands, and rarely, with additional hundreds. Occasionally, souvenir
sheets are included in the renegotiations. As we know, the first 25,000
souvenir sheets that accompany an issue are printed free of charge. Any
additional order or renegotiated quantities have to be paid for. Since
renegotiated quantities for souvenir sheets are small, they are usually
in hundreds only, many do not have such additional quantities because
more are spoiled due to the relative difficulty in perforating them.
Amstar always submits 3 sheets of proofs of every stamp and souvenir
sheet (all with violet handstamped "PROOF" in big letters on the gum
side), which differ in the shade of colors for selection and approval
before the actual printing is undertaken. Unfortunately, more often than
not, the designs are submitted too late such that the issue date is
already nearing. Amstar requests for at least 15 days lead time, but
approved designs are often submitted only 5 days or even less, before
issue date. So unless there are major or unacceptable mistakes, Amstar
refuses to make corrections and alterations, and Philpost usually has to
accept what is already on the plates if it wants the stamps to come out
as scheduled.
For the Chinese New Year issue of the Year of the Pig, scheduled for
issuance on December 5, 1994, 400,000 sets of the 2 stamps (P2 and P6),
plus 25,000 perforated and 25,000 imperforate souvenir sheets were
ordered. Amstar sent proofs of the stamps and souvenir sheet only before
noon of December 1 (Thursday). The designer noticed that the salakot
(hat) of the pig on the label on the upper right of the souvenir sheet
was in sky blue instead of green as in his design, but thought it will
still do, so the printing officer called up Amstar and instructed them
to proceed with the printing, because they were afraid the souvenir
sheets would not be delivered on time for issuance the following Monday
if he will still wait for the approval by the Chief of the Finance
Division, Mrs. Maog, who was then at a meeting. Later, when Mrs. Maog
was shown the proofs, she noticed that the inscriptions on the bottom
margin of the souvenir sheet were too small and of a different font
(sans serif) from the 2 previous ones in the series, (Year of the Cock
and Year of the Dog), and that the silhouettes of the pigs on the top
margin were too big and part of the 2 pigs at the sides will be cut by
the vertical perforations in the perforated version. So she called up
Amstar and requested them to correct these. She was informed that they
had already started the printing and that it will take a few days to
make the corrections on the "pigs" on the top margin. So Mrs. Maog had
to settle for a correction of the inscriptions on the bottom margin
only, in order to have the souvenir sheets delivered on December 3
(Saturday) for sale on December 5 (Monday). Since they are making some
changes, Amstar was instructed to also change the color of the salakot
to green as the designer wanted; and all the souvenir sheets that were
already printed were to be destroyed.
Amstar was able to meet the deadline, and delivered 2,500 sets of
souvenir sheets an December 3. By December 14, the 25,000 sets of
souvenir sheets were completely delivered, and about 2 months later,
they were all sold out. There was strong demand for this issue, maybe
because of the cute designs and attractive colors, so there were many
unfilled orders for the souvenir sheets. To satisfy the demand, Amstar
was requested to send the renegotiated quantities for the 2 souvenir
sheets as soon as possible, even before the New Year stamps and other
issues.
Amstar delivered 700 perforated and 2,500 imperforate souvenir sheets on
March 31, 1995. The 700 sets were sold out soon after. There were 1,800
imperforate Souvenir sheets left, but since some collectors are
satisfied with the imperforate only, they are all sold out by now also.
Now, it is among these renegotiated imperforate souvenir sheets that the
first Amstar-printed major error was discovered.
Twenty-four imperforate souvenir sheets with the small bottom
inscriptions and sky blue salakot were found included in 3 bundles of
100. And upon examination, they were found to be without the “PPC"
phosphorescent security mark.
These souvenir sheets were printed in bigger sheets of 6 before
perforating and guillotining, so the findings corresponds to 4 printed
sheets from the initial printing that was supposed to have been
destroyed. How they got there and how many more were mixed in with the
regularly issued souvenir sheets remains to be seen. But one thing is
clear, they were from the printing done before the requested corrections
were made, and they never went through the final printing run to receive
the “PPC” security mark which occurs on all Amstar-printed stamps and
souvenir-sheets since June of 1992. They were set aside for subsequent
destruction as spoiled stamps.
Maybe these 4 large sheets were mixed up with the regularly issued ones
and guillotined together, but it's possible some employees at Amstar
were ignorant and thought they were just the same, so when they could
not come up with the round figure of 2,500, they simply included these
so as not to let the extra 76 go to waste! Whatever happened or caused
this error we don't care, as this gave us a really good major error, the
first from Amstar!
Special printing of the Year of the Pig souvenir sheet in blue, with
the
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Articles by Dr. Ngo Tiong Tak |
