Errors

Printing these coasters was largely a manual process, and hence there was plenty of room for error. The fact that we do not find these very easily itself is testament to the stringent manufacturing checks. However, errors do surface once in a while, and that makes these coasters all the more collectable.

Look carefully in your collection, and also grab an opportunity to add to your collection if you come across such errors. These are very collectable.

Airline name missing:

Left: This is a Type 1.2 coaster, and they seem to have missed printing the name of the airline Air-India.

Right: The reverse of the coaster with the airline name Air-India printed.


One Colour printed upside down:

Left: The Type 4.1 coaster where Yellow colour has been printed upside down. Perhaps while printing the second colour, the screen was placed in the reverse orientation.

Right: the correct image with the yellow colour as it is meant to be.
Double error: The pink and yellow colour is printed upside down, and the black line drawing is the Tokyo image instead of the Kuwait image.

A wonderfully collectible error of a twin side printed coaster. On one side the Kuwait printing is just fine. Look how they messed up on the other side.

The correct images are shown below.
On the left is an image of the Kuwait coaster, and in the error on the above right picture you can see how they printed it upside down.

Even more interesting is the correct Tokyo coaster on the right. Notice how they took the black line drawings from here, and printed them on the Kuwait coaster. Also positioned the line drawing to start much higher than it should have.

A great addition.

All colours printed twice:

Left: the Type 1.2 Perth coaster where all the colours, Black, Red + Green have been applied twice. so you see the text and the image repeated with a different axis orientation.

Right: How is should have been.


Two Printing Colours missing:

Left: The Type 4.1 Muscat Coaster is missing two colours, Yellow + Green.

Right: The same Muscat coaster with both the colours in place as well.

Two Printing Colours missing:

Left: The Type 4.1 Lagos coaster on the left is missing the Yellow solid colour, as well as the black which is used to define the outlines.

Right: A similar coaster with all colours in place.
Single Colour Missing:

Left: The Type 1.2 Nadi (Nandi) coaster without the pink. Read more about the story of this coaster and varieties in the Chapter on Type 3 coasters.

Right: Another Type 2.1 Nadi (Nandi) coaster with the pink shade in place.
One colour ink applied partially only:

Left: The Type 4.1 Kuala Lumpur coaster with the green ink very lightly applied on some areas, and not applied at all in others, resulting in the first two letters of the city name, and a large portion if the tunic not getting inked at all.

Right: Another Type 4.1 coaster with the right amount of inking.

Printing defect, excessive ink in one area:

Left: A band of violet appears on the magenta border in this Type 4.1 Singapore coaster.

Right: The other side of the same coaster without this defect.
Registration Errors:

This is the most common type of printing error you will find in these coasters. Expecting perfect registration in a largely manual process is unreasonable, and I feel uncharitable including these here, but am doing so for the sake of completeness.
There are many more coasters with such errors, and the defects are visible only if you pay close attention, and actively look for them.
They are not visible at first glance, and hence, I'm not inclined to give much importance to them.