To me the yellow browns are the only evidence that backs were sometimes printed first. I can see this happening like this: if standard practice was that the fronts were printed first you would end up creating a pile of blank backs. The printer then set up the press and got out the ink to print the backs on those completed fronts. However, it might have sometimes happened that the printer printed backs on all of the completed fronts that needed them but still had the printer set up with ink left and ready to go - so rather than waste that ink he would print some backs with blank fronts to be ready to have fronts added to them later.
I should qualify all of this speculation by noting that I only have a rudimentary understanding of the printing process so I am looking forward to feedback from those who know more than I do.
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Originally Posted by Sean
Bryan, great 1000th post. I never thought about it, but those yellow/brown scraps make me wonder: if the fronts were printed first, why were backs printed on them before they were scrapped?
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