The discussion about what is a real variant and what is simply the result of a cheap printing process is almost as old as the catalogue itself. I remember that with Gerri we already discussed this many years ago.

At that time there were only a few new labels appearing, so variants were more interesting for collectors. Today the situation is very different. The catalogue now contains around 50,000 labels and every month another 200–300 new ones appear. In this context printing variations no longer have the same importance as they once had.

We also have the additional problem that today many printing errors come directly from printing houses and were probably never on a banana at all. The catalogue is meant to document banana labels used on bananas, not the printing process itself and all the things that can go wrong during production.

Personally, I think we should document fewer of these printing variations today. However, I would not remove the older ones from the catalogue (especially from the 1990–2010 period), because they also reflect the collecting spirit of that time. I suspect there will probably never be a solution that makes all collectors happy ...