The September issue of PM is out. The most striking thing about this issue is the completely inaccurate article on page 3 - "A Blight On Our Hobby". The article claims that Celtic supporters who made the journey to Lithuania to watch Kaunas v Celtic were able to buy copies of the rare Suduva v Celtic programme from last season's UEFA Cup run and, that these programmes were reprints. The evidence offered to support this wild claim is sadly inaccurate and none of the sources that gave the story were named. There is no doubt that the programme was available in small numbers but the claim that hundreds were sold and were reprints is simply not true. {read more]

I was one of those supporters that travelled to Kaunas and met the guys that had the programmes. Two guys that spoke very little English had copies for sale or swap. I swapped an old Celtic strip for a copy and, of course, asked the guy where he had got them. He said "I have them from the match". I said "since one year ago"? He said "yes". The other guy was a Lithuanian programme dealer. He had more and was selling them for about £1. The PM article claims " ....word had got back to Lithuania about the value of these programmes". If that was so, why did the dealer sell them at only £1. The answer is he didn't know but was just a dealer using the fact that Celtic fans were there to get rid of surplus stock.

It is claimed that the 'second version' - the copies sold at the Kaunas game - weighs 9 grams less than the original. This is absolute rubbish as I have just weighed both and they are exactly the same at 32 grams. They also say that the paper is different. Another inaccuracy as it is exactly the same on both of my copies. In fact, as you read the PM article, just think exactly the opposite and you will get a better idea of the truth. The PM article is also wildly inaccurate about how many copies were brought back. Their claim that several hundred copies made their way back is absolute rubbish. Only about 100 fans made that journey. We were all sitting together in the same section and I could name everybody in that crowd that collects programmes and everybody that bought one (or more).

It would have been better if the editor of PM had been more careful about the accuracy of the info in this article. There are lots of collectors who are lucky enough to have a spare of this programme and are hoping to use it as a swap to get some item they need. Others have paid up to £300 for a copy and will be very disappointed with this news. If there are copies around like the ones PM described in it's article, they certainly didn't originate in Lithuania and it is more likely that they were printed in Glasgow. Whatever you are told by anyone else, the truth is that only around twenty copies made it back to Scotland from the Kaunas match. This will be proved by the course of time and the fact that the Suduva away programme was, still is and always will be a rare issue.

WHERE ARE ALL THE PROGRAMME MONTHLY REPRINTS? (10/09/03)

So where are the hundreds of Suduva reprints we were promised by Programme Monthly in their work of fantasy about programmes bought in Kaunas? The answer is nowhere. Not one has been offered since the inaccurate article appearedin the September issue of the mag and never will. PM should now recheck their source and retract what they have claimed. This article has cost some collectors a fortune and PM should set the record straight and stop publishing rubbish (not for the first time).Instead of writing about how bad Internet auctions are, the editor of PM should concentrate on getting his copy accurate and in writing about the very obvious flaws in his preferred method - the totally opaque offers list. At least Internet auction sales are transparent. Everybody involved knows everything, unlike the corrupt conventional offers list. I suspect that there is a touch of sour grapes in this continious carping about the Internet. He and people like him are simply technophobes or could it be that they are pissed off at not having it all their own way anymore.

SUDUVA REPRINTS - TELLING THE DIFFERENCE

Reprinted copies of the Suduva programme have eventually surfaced. The difference is, the original story was only a smoke screen for some greedy people that are printing the copies in Scotland and selling them off as originals to screw you for your hard earned cash.

Below are pictures of the original and the reprint programme showing some differences. The images were scanned at the same time, using exactly the same scanner settings to ensure an exact match.

The top image above shows a section of the front cover for the original and the reprint. The original has a small blemish on the last letter "S" in TURNYRAS. It is a small dot on the "S". The reprint does not carry this. The reprint does, however, carry a similar small blemish to the right side of the letter "U" in TURNYRAS. The original does not carry the blemish on the letter "U".

The next images down shows the fancy page numbers at the top of page 3 on both the original and the reprint. Notice there is a lack of a yellow motion blur on the reprint compared to the original. The same flaw is present in the Suduva logo shown below the page numbers.

The bottom image shows the letter "R" which has now been put on reprints in possession of the dealer. Beware that others will not carry this letter "R" in red pen. They will continue to be passed as originals.

All of the above is helpful if you don't have an original copy to compare a suspect reprint to. If you do have an original, you can make a couple of other checks to make sure. Put both copies together, one front cover to the others back cover. The original should be a couple of millimetres taller than the reprint. There is a difference in weight. The original is heavier than the reprint - original (32 grammes), reprint (26 grammes).

You may have heard already but Celtic have managed to get hundreds of copies of the official UEFA Cup Final programme and had them on sale at Saturdays match with Livingston at £5 each. We purchased a single copy and compared it to an original. The programmes are EXACTLY the same except for two slight differences. The postcard at the bottom of page 3 in the original has moved to the top of the same page and is obscuring the programme contents list. Read the section at the bottom of this page to find out how you can tell if the postcard has been moved to the original place to make it look like an original programme.

There is a slight difference in colour. Colour is one of the biggest problems that printers face and it is very difficult to reproduce original colour exactly in reprinted documents. The pinky/red colour that is used extensively on the front cover is a shade darker on the reprint and there are other slight differences in colour throughout the various pages.

The most damming fact for this issue being a reprint, as ANYONE who was there on the night will tell you, the programme was complete sell-out hours before the match started. So where did this batch appear from if not from a reprint? If this is a reprint being sold by Celtic stores, they should have acknowledged this on the programme and not try to pull a fast one. Don't they make enough from fans already - with very little in return, so it seems. Or, maybe they just don't know that this is an important fact to collectors. See update below.

The UEFA Cup Final programme being sold by the Celtic shops has been confirmed as a reprint. Confirmation comes from the Celtic Superstore Web site where the programme is being sold for only £5 and is described as "UEFA Cup Final Seville Programme Reprint We have re-printed the Seville programme. Available Now. Due to fantastic demand please allow up to 28 days for delivery." It is a pity that Celtic didn't manage to do this prior to the final. Fans have been paying far in excess of £5 for a copy and there is no way of telling the reprint copy from the £80 copy. We have heard that Celtic did try to get the programme before the final but retreated in horror when the money for them was demanded up front. However, at least the matter has been resolved so, If you want to buy a reprint copy online (and there is very little difference, if any), click here.

The UEFA Cup Final programme reprint can be identified by the postcard on page 3. The postcard is stuck onto the the top half of the page on the reprints sold in Celtic Shops and it is stuck onto the bottom half on the originals that were bought at the match in Spain. In our original article we said that the postcard could be moved making it look like an original. This is incorrect. If the postcard has been moved to the bottom (as in the originals), two greasy marks will be visible where the postcard was stuck to the top of the page (shown in the image below). If you don't have two two greasy spots on the top half and the postcard is stuck to the bottom half of the page you have an original - only sold at the match in Seville.