Why the token waits for a signed sheet

Collectors sometimes ask us to mint first “so the number exists.” The number exists when I write it on the colophon in the same hand as the page figures. If the mill then spoils a sheet, I would have a token pointing at a piece of paper that never left Lincolnshire.

So the order is stubborn. Priya signs the colour hold. You sign the wet-proof or the reading-room sheet. I mill. I write the number. Then the token is written with that number, the issue title, and the mill batch. Metadata is a card index, not a substitute for the index.

If you cannot travel, we post the wet-proof in a crystal bag and wait for your dated note. We have sat on a finished colour hold for eleven days while a collector in Glasgow argued with us about Sue’s eyeline. The token still went out after the sheet, and the eyeline is better.