In Hungarian philately, the term tévnyomat is used for stamps that were produced incorrectly, contrary to the intention of the postal administration, but nevertheless entered postal circulation for a shorter or longer period and were usually withdrawn soon afterwards.
Such major errors generally arise from human error or omission. They can take many different forms, but their causes usually fall into the following categories:
- the use of incorrect material, such as paper with the wrong watermark or the use of an incorrect colour;
- the use of incorrect equipment, such as a defective printing plate or the wrong perforating unit;
- an incorrect printing or perforating process, such as inverted or repeated insertion, a typesetting error, or the omission of one colour or printing phase.
According to the Stamp Encyclopaedia, the following are not regarded as major errors in the strict sense:
- an error present throughout the entire issued quantity that entered postal circulation, such as the spelling of Zsuzsanna Lorántffy’s name with a single “f” on the 1939 issue;
- an erroneous issue later followed by a corrected issue;
- a stamp showing a minor printing irregularity, historically described by the Hungarian collectors’ term “kingerlice”;
- printer’s waste that entered the philatelic market illegally;
- differences caused by damage to a printing or production tool; such examples are generally regarded as varieties.
The word kingerlice requires some explanation, as it is virtually no longer used. According to the Stamp Encyclopaedia, it developed from a distorted form of the German word Kinkerlitzchen, meaning a trifle or knick-knack. It was formerly used as a collective term for minor printing irregularities such as colour misregistration, plate flaws and small accidental marks.
Today, Hungarian collectors and catalogues use the term tévnyomat in a much broader sense. The Catalogue of Hungarian Stamps groups conspicuous production errors under this heading and catalogues several hundred such rarities with the abbreviation “Tny”.
The main types of major errors and other philatelic varieties include:
- Plate flaws
- Missing colour or printing phase
- Inverted print
- Misregistered print
- Ink show-through
- Printing on both sides
- Double print and pseudo-double print
- Colour offsets
- Partial missing print
- Typesetting errors
- Perforation varieties
- Colour varieties and ink errors
- Paper folds
- Foreign-body printing flaws