Reproduction Newspapers on Ebay

Many national 20th Century newspapers were reproduced in the 60's and 70's as free insertsfor various weekly magazines; usually these were to illustrate major historical events outlined in the publication.

The editorial content of the magazines consisted of various disasters or triumphs, especially the World Wars. The insertsreproduced were not only British newspapers but also foreign papers, allhad major headlines.

Also many national and localspecial editionshave been and are stillbeing reproduced for anniversaries of historical events.

Usually it is quite easy to spot a reproduction from photographs, especially if the genuine newspaper originally had a coloured logo and this is lacking,i.e in WWII the Daily Express had ared crusader and this continued post war, the Daily Mirror/ Sunday Pictorialusually hadred title letters,post war the letters are white in a red box.The Daily Mail had a red editioncachet or logo to the right of its mast head. Other titles often had colouredcachets e.g Stop Press associated with them eg. Daily Herald and Daily Sketch, but unfortunately not always.

Localnewspapersseldomused colour, so a coloured logo/cachet is a bonus,thereare also nationaldaily papers that rarely or never had a coloured logo.

So acoloured logo/cachetis a good indicator.

But to make life really difficultrecent reproductions sometimesinclude coloured titles (even occasionally when the original title was in black and white!), butthese are adifferent shade and brighterwhen compared to the original. They are generally produced in packs, with a common theme e.g. Royalty, Disasters, 60'setc.They are available for National Curriculum studies and also general interest. These packs are often to beseen on the e-bay site and are really useful for students.

For those papers that usually do not have any coloured markingsassociated with them, it is really difficult to decide from a photograph if they are genuine, especially early 20th century papers, also the Daily Telegraph, the Times, Observerand News Chronical,but there are still markers to look for.

Look at the centre of the paper, as many early reproductions were essentially photocopies so you can see an image of the fold mark of the original paper and this will disrupt the text on the front page and subsequent pages.Also the edge mark of the original paper is obvious as a black line at the top or side of the page, butgenerally this is something you can only judge with the papers actually in your hand. Likewise the printand paper quality cannot be judged from photographs, modern reprints are printed on much finer paper than the originals,which often appeardull in comparison.

If seller has lots of major headlinescheck them carefullyorif the photograph of themasthead is incomplete be suspicious.

Remember that papers produced in the 60's and 70'swill, bynow, have an aged look to them.

Some of the reproductions are not even in a newspaper format e.g. being seperate sheetsor the pages are out of order!

Some anniversaryeditions actually have "reproduced by permission" printedon them!

There is a place for reproduction newspapers, especially for teaching purposes. As a collector I avoid them, but it is so easy to get caught out from a photograph.

Also remember too thatthese were free with the magazine or special issue, so do not pay an exhorbitant amount for them!

I have always founddealers to be honest and quite shocked whenthey findthat the item isnot quite what it seems, but as a collector for 40 years I know what to look for.

I believe that there is something quite special about an original newspaper, as you are holding a little piece of history and reading about a unique moment in time!

I also feel that these reprints should be described as such and not passed off as genuine to the unwary.