In color printing three plates are used -- cyan, magenta and yellow. Sometimes, a fourth plate -- black is added for high definition, fine engraved detail. If you print CMY at a 100 percent...the printed product in register will be black. To get the various tones and shades in color printing each plate then is divided into percentages of dots (example: 10% cyan, 30% magenta and 60% yellow stacked on top of each other could possibly produce orange). Registering these three elements is the printers craft because the plates all have to line up dots on top of dots. Failure to line up dots, causes a variance of color and unusual shades of ink applied in a mis-registered image. What might have happened in this case is the plates were switched at start up causing the misalignment, but the probable culprit is all the colors (CMY) were not properly aligned when the plates were made. Correcting the situation usually requires new plates and registration lockup. That's how it happens on paper...on blanks that print chips..it might be a little different, but the premise is the same. Hope this helps.