Over-Spray
Over-spray is usually an unobtrusive indigo, purple, blue or
green ink that often appears on the upper edge and sometimes spine of a book.
However, it is not uncommon to have a severe over-spray so that it becomes a
visually obtrusive defect. It was common that distributors would code bundles
of books by spraying the top edges with a colored liquid mist. This was done as
a method of identification used by distributors so they would know which books
were the ones they distributed (there were multiple distributors). Often books
would be returned to distributors, and in the event of a return distributors
only accepted books they originally distributed, and not books from other
distributors.
