Let's take another look at that...

Not only does the castle card above on the right appear to have been replaced by the view on the left (again above) but that view on the right replaced an earlier view, one that had the same number and the same image...just more of it. It seems that an early version of this card was not cropped in as tightly on the castle. The one below on the left was postmarked in February of 1976, but I have other examples postmarked later in that year of the more tightly cropped version like the one on the right.

and once more again!

About a month after I discovered the more widely cropped version of card 0111-0349 (above), I was re-sorting my cards of the 0111-0000 series, I was sorting them by the color of the ink and the icons on the back of the cards. All the postcards of this series have a drawing of the castle on the back of the card, this drawing is printed along the bottom of the card back in the center. The earliest (1975) card in this series had a castle icon that I think of as the "outline castle" version, all of these cards were printed in black ink. That wide view of the castle, above, was one of those earliest printed card (with the back printed in black ink and the outline icon. The later (1976-1978) card was printed with a "solid castle" icon and it's back is printed in blue ink . The solid castle icon below is printed in black (more on that later), the blue is the same, other than the color.

I knew that still later there was a card printed with the back in black ink, but until I was looking over the cards closely while doing this re-sorting I mentioned earlier, I had not noticed that it was cropped differently as well. Perhaps part of the reason I missed it is that the top of the card looks almost exactly the same and the difference on the sides is evenly divided, just a small bit in on each side. Still, I should have noticed the bottom, since the top changed very little, there is much more difference along the bottom. The big yellow flower on the bottom right of the first two views is cropped completely out of this version. In fact the flowers are much less prominent overall on this card than in either of the first two versions, but enough of me writing about it, take a look for yourself...

All these different variants of this card made me start to wonder if any of the other cards in this series were cropped differently from one printing to another. Searching through them I found that the card of Mickey seemed to be cropped differently from the earlier printings to the later not cropped in tighter though with a bit more foliage on the left in earlier printings and on the right in later printings, the top and bottom borders seem to be exactly the same. You can even stack the one card on top of the other and see how they line up, the first image below is the earlier printing (black inked back with outline icon)stacked on top, the second image is stacked later (blue inked back, with solid castle icon) printing on top.

Still, I don't know if I would call a pair of card like these variants from each other if the backs are the same, there is always going to be at least some degree of difference in the way one card is cropped (or cut in the printing process) from another, in that sense no postcards can be said to be like snow flakes no two cards are exactly alike. Still when the amount of difference is greater, and especially if there is evidence that the differences occurred during separate print runs, (for instance when the backs are different), then you might as well note the difference in the way the front is cropped as well. I also found that a couple of the Pirates of The Caribbean cards have minor differences from one print run to another. In the first case below, both the cards have blue back but are still from different print runs , one says "PLACE STAMP HERE" in the stamp block while the other has the more usual wording "STAMP", as you can see in the scan the crop difference is top to bottom, and is as big or bigger than the difference in the Mickey card above. The second image, the one of the "Auction" scene,is a minor right to left, but it really stands out when you look at the two cards side by side, probably because two more letters of the word "MERCADO" are seen in the later blue-backed card "MER" as opposed to just the "M" showing in the earlier black with outline icon printing.