Ok so with the recent movements of the rare Russian promo tiles in the Marketplace section, several questions have been asked regarding various versions of this expansion, including the reverse back tiles.
In that topic I have adressed this, but I thought it would be a good idea to make it into its own topic. Here is my previous answer:
To chime in on on the reversed tiles. The 2013 version of Russian promos containing 2 tiles has actually been produced 3 times, not just once. That is the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. There may have been some differences between these print runs including the reversal of the sides.
I should mention that I own a 2015 version which does not have reversed backs, however the backs are rotated 90 degrees clock-wise - a feature a suspect is common for all three runs. Additionally, my 2015 version is significantly darker shade of green than this reversed tile - a shade simlar to 2016 4 tile version.
Unfortunatelly, I do not have any information on the number of places, where these tiles were printed, so local discrepancies cannot be ruled out.
UPDATE: I have confirmed some information I already suspected. So the 2013 and 2014 versions have lighter green, while 2015 and 2016 version have darker green. However I am still not sure if the reversal occured in 2013 or 2014 version, nor if all the tiles from those versions were affected.
So to streamline this I will make the following model:
2013: light green, 90° rotation
2014: light green, 90° rotation
2015: dark green, 90° rotation
2016: dark green, no rotation
To add to this, we know that reversed tiles of the light green versions exist. This brings up 4 different possibilities:
1. Only 2013 version has a subset of reversed tiles
2. Only 2014 version has a subset of reversed tiles
3. Both 2013 and 2014 versions have a subset of reversed tiles
4. Either 2013 or 2014 version exists exclusively as a reversed tile set.
It is currently unknown which one of these scenarios is correct, or if reverse tiles of 2015 or 2016 versions exist.
To answer the latter question, I am inclined to say no. 2015 version seems to be more streamlined (some rule updates were made) and it switched to a new green.
There are pictures on the internet of the 2016 version, depicting stacks of 2016 sheets, none of which are reversed. It is plausible that those were all the tiles ever made for 2016, although that is unconfirmed.
So in conclusion, I would like to ask if anyone owns a 2013 or 2014 versions of these tiles, and is 100% certain that they truly belong to that version. If so please post any interesting observations here.
Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=4815.0