Collecting
Printing error
Error de impresión
A printing error is a note that left the plant with an unintentional defect: an off-centre cut, a sheet flap, mismatched serials at each end, missing ink, or a shifted register. In the shop it is also called a maculature. It is not a replacement: a replacement substitutes a destroyed sheet with a marked example. It is not a fancy serial. The error is identified on the piece — a triangular flap, two serials that do not match — and is not inferred from a BanRep denomination-year total, which mixes good paper and paper that should have been destroyed.
In Colombian notaphily Hernández calls a cutting error with a wing of paper still attached a mariposa (butterfly). This collection records that variety on the 5,000-peso note of 31 July 2010, Pick 452l, serial 09636101, with a sheet-margin flap at the top edge. The Jorge Isaacs 50,000-peso note of 5 September 2008, Pick 455l, carries mismatched serials: 72461316 and 72411316, a numbering error, not a cut. The 1,000-peso records of 2000, 2008, and 2011 gather other factory faults; each has its own serial and they are not merged into one “error type.”
An error does not licence invented rarity or printage. González White marks many dates N.D. for emisión; Numista gives rarity indexes for the type, not for the fault. These pieces are shown in sleeves, unslabbed, unless the record cites a certificate. The collector distinguishes a factory error from later damage — a circulation tear is not a butterfly cut. Colombia’s error case groups those records; the glossary only names the phenomenon and points to pieces already published.
Examples in the collection
See also: Error note , Replacement / star note , Butterfly cut