Design errors

Modern world

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Wireless phone A wireless phone, more than 50 years before the GSM was invented (GERMANY - 1934)


Wrong rainbow In a rainbow, you will find the purple colour at the other side, near the blue, not near the red. (CHINA - 1988)


Locked cog wheels. This stamp was issued to illustrate progress in the industry of Korea. But in this position, the cog wheels are locking each other and will not move (NORTH KOREA - 1969)


Wireless telephone Wireless phone on the stamp, and only 9 holes instead of 10 in the drawing left (TOGO - 1976)


Snow crystal Snow crystals have six branches, not eight. (ITALY - 1966)


Broken sunrays The sunrays are broken by the handle of this shovel (GERMANY - 1947)


Wireless telephone Wireless telephone ? (ALGERIA - 1976)


Missing cable As the main tending cable is missing, this crane will collapse at the first use. (AUSTRALIA - 1947)


2 instead of 3 On some of those stamps, the 3-digit is missing, while the 2 appears twice. (BELGIUM - 1971)


Wrong formula The production proces of ammoniak gives carbon dioxid, which correct formula is CO2, not CH2. (CHINA - 1990)


Wrong antenna Characters from a children TV-program, but the aerial included in the design is not a TV aerial, but an upside-down UKW aerial which could only receive TV-pictures at a very short range. (GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC - 1964)


Noisy restaurant This might be a noisy restaurant, as the waves do not originate from the mast above, but from the inside of the restaurant and the viewing tower. (GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC - 1969)


Wrong resistor. On modern resistors, numbers have been substitued by colors. Gold and silver are always on the right side (tolerance of 5 or 10%), thus the third band can never been gold and the fourth one never green. (GERMANY - 1975)


Wrong inventor. This is not Rudolf DIESEL, but James WATT, pictured with his steam engine. (GRENADA - 1987)


Wrong inventor. This is not James WATT, but Rudolf DIESEL pictured with his engine. (GRENADA - 1987)


Wrong lighthouse. The light of a lighthouse is a beam, not a bulb. (ITALY - 1955)


Danger ! Quite dangerous cable with two male sides. (JAPAN - 1990)


Missing wire. Someone cut out the connexion to the telephone receiver. And instead of 10, the dish of the blue phone has nine holes, the yellow one only eight ! (KENYA - 1976)


Too many sides. Nuts have four or six sides, never eight. They would too easily be damaged by a wrench. (MALTA - 1958)


Noisy restaurant Noisy restaurant as the radiowaves seem to issue from the restaurant, not from the antenna located above. (GERMANY - 1965)


Technical error. This dynamo is wrongly poled. (GERMANY - 1966)


Wrong proof. Stamp commemorating A. Riese who discovered the famous 'proof of nine' for multiplications. The figure 2 on the stamp, however, should have been 7 ! (GERMANY - 1959)


Wrong instrument This is not a telescope, but a microscope. The link of this tool with telecommunications is not clear (NIGER - )


Wrong snowcristal Snowcristal with only five branches instead of six. (RUSSIA - 1964)


Wrong chemical representation A carbon atom linked to ... three hidrogen atoms. As we learned in school, carbon has 4 links. (MEXICO - )


Wrong person, climbing water The image of Archimedes on the stamp is from a bust in the National Museum of Naples, representing Archidamos III, a third-century BC king of Sparta. And the water is flowing uphill aas it leaves the top of the screw. (ITALY - 1983)


Wireless phone Wireless phone (SWITZERLAND - 1976)


Missing wires An high tension line has 6 wires and at the top an earth wire. Instead of 14, only 11 wires were represented. (SWITZERLAND - 1949)


Useless equipment Impossible to fix something with this circular spanner. (HUNGARY - 1969)


No power Both street lamps cannot be lit, as the electrical wire has been cut. (FRANCE - 1947)


Wrong position A man is being X-rayed, with his arms in a wrong position for a correct chest picture. (FRANCE - 1957)


Sun at night The man on the Nautilus' deck is busy taking the altitude of the sun ....in the moon light. (FRANCE - 1955)


Anachronism On the stamp, Pelletier and Caventou are looking at the formula of Quinine, a medecine against Malaria that they discovered in 1820. But the exact formula of this medicine waas only determined more than 40 years later. (FRANCE - 1970)


Wrong place Not an error for Sweden, as Swedish phones have the 0 before the 1. In other countries however, the zero is located after the 9. (SWEDEN - 1976)


Missing hole The dial disk of this old telephone has only nine holes instead of ten. (TUNISIA - 1974)


Missing range Four selection buttons but only three frequency ranges. (AUSTRIA - 1964)


Strange telephone FDC with a strange design of a telephone : the numbers are not positioned on a circle (ANDORRA - 1967)


Wrong formula Wrong formula. The stamp was corrected. (SOUTH WEST AFRICA - 1989)


Not world's largest The Jodress Bank telescope is not world's largest as claimed on this stamp. The one in Porto Rico is much bigger. (ASCENSION - 1971)


Missing string The string, necessary to bring the handle again in position, was omitted. (ARGENTINA - 1954)


Wrong phone Bell never used the 'Williams-telephone' that is shown on this stamp (AUSTRALIA - 1976)


Optic illusion If you see the arrow pointing to the front, then East and West are inverted. (MOROCCO - 1970)


Four errors Nobel prize winners for chemistry : but Banting and Hench whon the prize for Medecine, Perrin for physics, and Marie Curie won in 1911, not in 1913. (COMORO ISLANDS - 1977)


Bad representation Strange microcope (MOROCCO - 1973)


Wrong poles Bell was the inventor of the telephone, but some people found out that the poles in the background are not telephone, but telegraph poles. (CANADA - 1947)


Missing fixation point Four wires for only three pole supports. (CHILE - 1941/2)


Moved by hands Gandhi always used a manual spinning wheel moved by hands, not by feed as showed here. (BRAZIL - 1969)


Non existing equipment This equimpent is called 'Transformer Oil switch' on the stamp. An oil switch cuts the power, a transformer change the voltage, but a transformer switch does not exist. (CHINA - 1976)


Design errors The lens of the microscope is not perpendicular to the object plane, and the refecting mirror is too forward to refect the light into the tube. (CHINA - 1982)


Wrong side The projectionist stands at the left side of the film projector, instead of the normal right side. (CHINA - 1987)


Useless The cogs of gearwheels have to be identical, otherwise they will they will not be able to turn. (GREECE - )


Capital letter There is no reason why Radium is written with a capital letter. (FRANCE - 1998)


Missing cord Missing cord (LUXEMBOURG - 1985)


Not the best illustration This electrocardiogram graph is from a person with an heart disease, perhaps not the best way to promote sport. And the position of arms and legs of the middle runner is incoherent. (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - 1983)


Wrong name, wrong container Wrong : LE BON - Correct : LEBON \| He invented the illuminating gas from the distillation of wood. Due to the high temperature, this was made in fireclay containers, not in glass. (FRANCE - 1955)


At least one too much Snowcristal with at least seven branches instead of six. (RUSSIA - 1985)


Missing cord Telephone with missing cord. (RUSSIA - 1969)


Bad copy The stamp shows a drawing from the astronomer J. Kepler. But soms signs or letters were changed or omitted. (GERMANY - 1971)


Useless These wrenches with rounded shape are useless. (INDONESIA - 1969)


Wrong direction The sun ernergy does not feed the house, it is the house which is powering the sun. (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - 1995)


Exact copy The formula h2/ec on the blackboard is wrong, as e and h has been inverted. The error however, was not made by the stampdesigner who carefully copied a photo of the Nobelprize winner, who made the error during one of his lessons. (ITALY - 2001)


Not coherent As the fluid magma reaches the surface, there should have been a visible volcanic activity. (AUSTRALIAN ANTARTIC TERRITORIES - 2002)


Additional hole Eleven holes instead of ten. (SINGAPORE - )


Locked Impossible to move this gear. (ARGENTINA - 1963)


No illumination As this microscope has no internal illumination, it will hardly be possible to discover very much. (MAURITIUS - 1978)


Wrong instrument This instrument is not an ASTROLOBE, as can be seen on a correct stamp from Australia. (PORTUGUESE GUINEA - 1969)


Useless microscope The microscope's objective is out of line with the center of the mirror, while the mirror itself has not enough place to pivot. (RUSSIA - 1966)


One too less Snowcristals have six branches, no five. Correct on a Polissh stamp. (RUSSIA - 1964)


Wrong antennas The antennas of the Sputnik I on the stamp have less in common with the antennas on the real Sputnik I. (GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC - 1957)


Impossible position As two wires passes behind the head of the worker, he is twisted in the wires. Furthermore one of the wires is not attached to the pole. (ROMANIA - 1945)


Six too much Snow crystal with twelve branches instead of six. (RUSSIA - 1973)


Wrong figures Stamp commemorating A. Riese who discovered the famous 'proof of nine' for multiplications. The figure 3 on the stamp, however, should have been 9 ! (GERMANY - 1992)


Automatic The television camera in the Swedish Parliament is an automatic, fixed camera, never operated by man. (SWEDEN - 1974)


Wrong direction The direction of thelaser beam is not perpendicular to the eye, and will damage it. (FRANCE - 2001)


Wrong method No preliminary cut to force the tree to fall in the correct direction,and in normal circumstances, a tree is never cut wen it has leaves. (FRANCE - 1995)


Too early The digital characters used in clocks and electronic devices, did not yet exist when the first man was launched into space. (FRANCE - 2001)


Missing screw A screw is missing to adjust this microscope. (ITALY - 1955)


Wrong direction The big wheel of this mine was featured in the wrong direction. (FRANCE - 1938)


Too early Astronomer Nasir al-Din Tusi lived in the 13th century. He is using a telescope which will be invented 300 years later, near a globe that was only concieved 200 years later. (AZERBAIDJAN - 2009)


Too much Ice crystals were made with the names of the cities of the Elfstedentocht. On the stamp they have eight branches, in reality only six. (NETHERLANDS - 1997)


Wrong code The coded information on the left side of the stamp do not correspond with the weather picture on the stamp. (NETHERLANDS - 1990)


Missing wire Not connected telephone handset. (IVORY COAST - )


Wrong method Landing with a parachute on Jupiter, where there is no atmosphere ? (COMORO ISLANDS - )


In one word Wrong : KILO-VOLT - Correct : KILOVOLT. (GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC - 1961)


Danger The protection doors have to be closed first, before the lift is activated. (GERMANY - 1957)


Missing part Missing cord between the telephone and the horn. (JORDAN - 1976)


Wrong metal To illustrate Swedish forging, a bronzen piece was used : bronze is of course casted, not forged. (SWEDEN - 1970)


Wrong formula The formula of methan is CH4, not HC4. (MONACO - 1986)


Missing man This kind of saw has to be powered by to men, one at each side. (ITALY - 1950)


Missing cord Missing cord between the telephone and the horn. (CAYMAN ISLANDS - )


Useless tool This tool is completely useless. (CAMEROON - 1969)


Inexact position At 2h18, the position of the small hand is not on the 2, but already at a third on its way to the 3. (GABON - 1967)


Wrong location The location of the Von Neumayer Polar Research Station was modified. The stamp still shows the original location, the red arrow the real location. (GERMANY - 1981)


Error in formula Error in formula : at the bottom right, the connexion is not made with the second oxygen molecula, but with the first one. (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - 2008)


Wrong direction As this scientist was the first to isolate the fluor, a better formula should have been 2HF -> H2 + F2 (FRANCE - 1986)


Snowflake Snowflake with eight branches instead of six. (NIGER - 1987)


Two too much Snowflake with eight branches instead of six. (AFGHANISTAN - 1984)


Missing branche A snow cristal has six branches, not five. (CANADA - 1988)


Wrong abbreviations The abbreviation of the maesure unit candela is cd and not Cd. The abbreviation of Kelvin degrees is K, not °K. (ROMANIA - 1966)


Dangerous It is obvious that the designer was not an engineer, as he forgot to fix the wheel. (BELGIUM - 1993)


Wrong conversion This is not the conversion between Fahrenheit and Centigrades degrees, but between Fahrenheit and Celsius. (KENYA UGANDA TANZANIA - )


Wrong source The radiowaves are not issued from the antennas (ANDORRA - 1988)


Wrong shape, wrong target Wrong shape of a V2-rocket. Furthermore, they were not directed to Berlin (DOMINICA - 1995)


Dangerous! Bayonet incorrectly mounted - located in front of the rifle barrel (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - 1962)


Locked Try to move those gears, it is completely impossible!. (UNITED NATIONS - 1998)


Horizontal A liquid in a glass remains always horizontally (correct on other image) (AUSTRALIA - 2010)


Missing digits Telephones with only 8 and 9 digits (TANZANIA - 1976)


Inversion Inversion between East and West on this compass (CANADA - 1989)