Red anomaly in our 1986 - Soviets in Space October issue

[Pece Kocovski]

Our October 1986 issue (cover is Soviets in Space) has an interesting anomaly that I didn’t realize was out of the ordinary at the time. Until now, I just assumed that both me and my brother had the map/supplement missing from this issue, due to the red highlight on the spine. But I was told that actually there is no map or supplement for this issue. Both our copies are from Australia.

Not sure why copies in Australia would have the red highlight.

Does anyone in America have a copy of this issue handy to see if they have a red highlight on the spine? Anyone from Australia or a different country?

[George Thomas Wilson]

This is interesting, Pece. 

My copy, from America, has no red on the spine. "SOVIETS IN SPACE" is in black as is the rest of the spine verbiage.

[George Thomas Wilson]

Here's what mine looks like:

[George Thomas Wilson]

And this is yours:

[Philip Riviere]

Pece,

There was no red highlight on the spine and no supplement for the October 1986 U.S. issue....

Phil

[Melvin L. De Vilbiss]

Pece,

Ditto with Tom and Phil's comments. My copy is all black on the binding.

To add to this, sometimes the NGS published regionally different issues (though usually only the advertisements were affected).

In 1986, I was living in Tacoma, Washington and not on the U.S. east coast as I presume Tom and Phil were at time.

This would indicate homogeneity within the United States.

Nice observation on your part - thanks for sharing!

Mel

[Pece Kocovski]

Credit goes to Scott for initially telling me that his version of the issue was in black.

Thank you everyone for sharing. If I encounter anymore of these issues in the future, I will write here to indicate if it is consistent with the red highlight.

[Scott T. Shier]

. . . On further thought, now your red text makes me wish that there had been a supplement for this issue/topic. A map of Star City and an image on reverse of say, their space shuttle Buran, would have been cool.

[George Thomas Wilson]

I went through my issue again after this post, Scott.  I was hoping to find some perforations.

Do you think it was red for Communism as it the "red scare"?  Make it more menacing?

Or, just maybe, it just was to highlight the cover article.  Perfectly innocent.

[Scott T. Shier]

Ha ~ clever pun Tom !

...good thought about double-checking for a perforated "section". 

Given the time period, it cannot have been to accentuate the lead story. They only have done that recently, for single-topic issues.