What is a variant?

michael's picture

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There are some labels in the catalog that are very similar and it is difficult to see the differences. Sometimes I know it has got some "historic" reasons (in the former riehl-collection) because a labels was given to me by a friend and I wanted to express that it is new and I'm very happy. So please add a comment when you upload a new label and it is not obvious why it is new.

And in case of doubt, please do not upload labels that only differ insignificat. Add this label with a picture at position #2 to the most similar one. We have now about 22.000 different labels and most likely we do not need to document all the small variants any more. Probably even on the same role is the first label differs from the last one, because it is a cheap printing process.

Is this OK for you? Do we want to focus on lables that clearly differs in color, shape  or text formats? Can we agree to add comments, to point out differences? Is there anything you need to document that there are small variants existing?

With the NACIONAL label the

With the NACIONAL label the old discussion what is a variant is started again: To sum it up:

  • It is a very cheap process to produce banana labels. The labels at one role differ a little bit, because some colours are getting empty ("fine vs. bold print") or the mashines are not justified excactly. This leads to slightly slipped elements. The first label of a role will differ from the last label.
  • Some labels in the collection are bleached, because they are stored different in the collections. Some remove the glue, some leave it on the wax paper, some put the glue in flour and some put it on a yellow sheed of paper in a stamp book. This leads to minor colour variants.
  • The scanners differ and variants are difficult to distinguish at a computer screen. This leads also to colour variants. Sometimes this color deviation is huge. Especially for neon colours but also sometimes for purple / blue or orange / red.
  • Some labels are used many years by the companies and the question is, if we find today a label that is also used 10 years ago, is it really a new variant or not? But what will be next year? Again a new variant? 3 labels or more without significant differences?

We would have to recheck all our old flags 'I have it' or 'I trade it' at existing labels when some else is adding a small variant. This is not practicable and will be a mess. We can not handle it. Minor variants are a problem and there is no rule, what we like to see at the catalog and what is only confusing. But having now 34,000 labels in the catalog, we should not document minor variants any more. This is someting for the private collection when you see the real labels and not the pictures next to each other.

Like written in 2017: If you really want to have a minor variant in the catalog of banana labels please add a comment AND add a picture with an explanation of both labels at one picture at the second position in the details of both labels. And be aware: I delete fast when I do not know why the same label is added redundant.