We set the press for a number, we print that number, and then we stop. There is no counter racing down a screen, no ninety-minute window, no last-chance message at eleven at night. The rule is declared before the edition opens and it cannot be changed after — not by us, not by a good week, not by a sold-out size.
Issue 001 · the register
Each copy carries its number where a size tag would be, heat-transferred inside the collar. It is a fact of the printing, not a rank in a club: nobody here is a founding member, somebody simply reached the press earlier. We number for the same reason a printer numbers a run — so the run can be counted afterwards by anyone who cares to.
We don't do sales. We do sold out.
A refunded copy does not return to the shelf. The declared number was a ceiling, not a target, and a ceiling that moves is a wall you painted on the air. If we printed one copy more than we announced, every other sentence this house publishes would quietly become marketing.
