Identifying a Warsaw first pressing by printing anomalies:
After a lot of research comparing early and original
pressings both physically and from photos sent to us by
collectors we believe it is possible to tell an original
pressing via some ‘print hickeys’ on the front cover. Please
note: we can't guarantee this information is 100% accurate
as we are researching it some 40 years after the event.
Hickeys are a common problem in offset printing caused by
particles sticking to the blanket or plate that transfers
the image to the printed page, usually showing as a dot with
a ring around. They may affect all, or part, of a print run
as the person operating the printing press would would
likely clean any specs they noticed from the roller.
1. The original black vinyl pressing has some
distinctive hickeys in the top left corner of the pulsar
design. As far as we know the only other pressing that has
these features is the clear vinyl reissue.
We have confidence in this because the son of one of the
original bootleggers has a first pressing copy with these
marks.
2. Some copies of the first pressing also have a
distinctive small circle half way down the design on the
right hand side. Some first pressing copies have it
elsewhere, others don't have it at all. We suspect this was
caused by dust or something that moved about during the
print run. This does not appear on any of the represses.
We have confidence in this because a friend of the other
first pressing bootlegger got a copy and his had the "o" in
this position.
All copies have various tiny white white specs in random
positions.
Finally it's worth noting that, as these are errors that may
have been spotted and corrected during the printing process,
there may be sleeves without these features.