Why Are Some Prints Marked Outside the Numbering? Copies Kept Back
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A print marked with letters instead of a number belongs to a small group kept by the maker outside the numbered edition. The practice began for technical reasons and now sits awkwardly in the market.
Where the practice began
Printing from a plate, stone or block is an iterative process, and the maker pulls trial impressions throughout to see what the surface is actually doing, adjusting the work between pulls. Those trials were the original proofs, made to prove the state of the plate rather than to sell, and they document the development of an image in a way the finished edition cannot. Once the image was settled, a further small group was traditionally kept back by the maker as personal copies, distinct from the numbered edition sold through a publisher or dealer. That group is what the marking now refers to, and the customary allowance was around ten per cent of the edition, though nothing enforces that.
The markings and what they mean
Several abbreviations appear in the margin and each has a specific sense:
- •A number over a number, giving the impression and the size of the numbered edition
- •AP or EA, the maker's own copies held outside that numbering
- •PP, a copy for the printer who did the physical work
- •HC, a copy outside commerce, often for exhibition or reference
- •BAT, the impression approved as the standard the rest must match
- •A cancelled plate impression, pulled after the surface was defaced to prove no more can be made
Why the numbering means less than it appears
The fraction written in pencil looks like a guarantee of scarcity and is weaker than most buyers assume. The number does not indicate the order of printing, since impressions are usually numbered after the whole run is complete and are frequently numbered in whatever order they come to hand, so a low number carries no information about quality. The stated edition size covers only that edition, and a maker may produce further editions of the same image at a different size, on different paper or in a different colour. Copies outside the numbering are not counted in it, so an edition of one hundred may involve considerably more than one hundred sheets. What the number does establish is a limit that the maker has stated publicly, which matters because defacing the plate afterwards makes it enforceable.
How the image is made
Understanding the marking means understanding what is being numbered, and the main techniques divide by how ink reaches the paper. Relief methods print from the raised surface left after cutting away everything else, which is how woodcut and lino work. Intaglio methods print from lines cut or bitten below the surface and filled with ink, which covers engraving, etching, drypoint and aquatint, and which produces the slightly raised ink and the plate mark that collectors look for. Lithography prints from a flat surface treated so that ink adheres only where the image was drawn, exploiting the mutual repulsion of grease and water. Screen printing pushes ink through a stencilled mesh. Each wears differently with use, which is part of why edition sizes exist at all.
The problem with reproductions
A large part of the market consists of photographic reproductions of paintings, signed and numbered in the same way, and the distinction from an original print is important and routinely blurred. An original print is made from a surface the artist worked on, and the printed sheet is the artwork rather than a copy of one, so the medium is the point. A reproduction is a photograph of a work that exists elsewhere, printed by a machine, and the signature in the margin adds an autograph rather than making it an original. Both are sold with certificates, both are numbered, and the language used to advertise them is frequently identical. The reliable test is how the image was made rather than anything printed on the certificate.
The takeaway
Copies marked with letters rather than a number are held back by the maker outside the numbered edition, a practice descended from the trial impressions pulled while working on a plate. The numbering says less than buyers assume, since it does not record the order of printing and does not count the copies outside it. An original print is made from a worked surface, which is what separates it from a signed photographic reproduction.