Before a stamp or item is issued, it is checked a number of times at any stage of the design or production process. In spite of that, it happens more than once that an error is only discovered after a stamp has been issued.

The first reaction is unbelief and panic : how could this happen?  who is responsible ? The second reaction is more practical : what shall we do ?

Often the best thing to do is .... nothing. Just sit down and wait till the commotion passes by : after two or three days, life continues as before and nobody seems to care about what has happened.

But sometimes the error is too big or crazy, and the reaction too heavy : day after day newspapers continue to report about it, and the public opinion seems to consider it as an attack on their national proud.

To stop this process and to bring back peace, there is no other choice than start all over again, and issue a new and corrected stamp, with a slightly changed design.

Here is a nice example of such TWIN-STAMPS : in 1958 Russia issued a stamp to celebrate the friendship among the different communist countries that were under its influence area. Unfortunately the Czechoslovakian flag was not depicted correctly, as the white and red colors were inverted (somewhere in the middle of the stamp). To avoid a diplomatic incident, the Russian authorities apologized, and decided to withdraw the stamp  and to issue a corrected one.