Osprey "Print on demand"

[Hook]

Good afternoon,

 

Does anyone else had this experience?

 

I have a good number of Osprey Combat Aircraft volumes, and have been quite happy with them. Recently, however, I ordered a new example of their "AH-1 Cobra units of the Vietnam War" and was rather surprised of the print quality of the b/w pages - I  literally have better looking pages come out of my home printer. The title page stated that this was a "print on demand" title.

 

I shot them an e-mail and received a prompt and coutreous reply, stating that they recently had some problems with the printer, and an offer to send a free replacement. This arrived today, but is hardly any better. Photos in the b/w section appear washed out and vague, without detail and with white stripes running through the entire page.

 

So, long story short, nothing but compliments for the people manning Osprey's customer service, but this is not the quality I am used to. I can't really see a point in buying more of their volumes at this price- quality tradeoff.

 

Am I alone in this, or do people here have the same experiences?

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

Edited October 6, 2020 by Hook

[Super Aereo]

I have bought a couple of tiles to replace old volumes that had become damaged (never keep coffee on your desk when reading!), and in my copies there is a very small reduction - almost imperceptible - in the quality of the photos, which I believe is due to the use of a rougher type of paper instead of the "normal" glossy one, but nothing as dramatic as you describe.

 

I must add that my only examples are relative to WW2 aircraft, so the original images tend to be low-definition anyway.

 

It might be worth brining it up again with Ospreys, just in case. I guess the paper they use for reprint is either a technical measure or a cost reduction one, or both.