diff --git a/doc/source/release.rst b/doc/source/release.rst
index 55d0858ebbcde..54fa4d30bac0a 100644
--- a/doc/source/release.rst
+++ b/doc/source/release.rst
@@ -44,6 +44,9 @@ pandas 0.13
 
 **Bug Fixes**
 
+  - ``HDFStore`` raising an invalid ``TypeError`` rather than ``ValueError`` when appending
+    with a different block ordering (:issue:`4096`)
+
 pandas 0.12
 ===========
 
diff --git a/pandas/io/pytables.py b/pandas/io/pytables.py
index 3c08213bf26d1..a5a8355567e23 100644
--- a/pandas/io/pytables.py
+++ b/pandas/io/pytables.py
@@ -2672,7 +2672,7 @@ def create_axes(self, axes, obj, validate=True, nan_rep=None, data_columns=None,
                     b = by_items.pop(items)
                     new_blocks.append(b)
                 except:
-                    raise ValueError("cannot match existing table structure for [%s] on appending data" % items)
+                    raise ValueError("cannot match existing table structure for [%s] on appending data" % ','.join(items))
             blocks = new_blocks
 
         # add my values
diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/test_pytables.py b/pandas/io/tests/test_pytables.py
index 00d8089ad2ee7..6518f9cb6097f 100644
--- a/pandas/io/tests/test_pytables.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/test_pytables.py
@@ -620,6 +620,21 @@ def test_append_with_different_block_ordering(self):
 
                 store.append('df',df)
 
+        # test a different ordering but with more fields (like invalid combinate)
+        with ensure_clean(self.path) as store:
+
+            df = DataFrame(np.random.randn(10,2),columns=list('AB'), dtype='float64')
+            df['int64'] = Series([1]*len(df),dtype='int64')
+            df['int16'] = Series([1]*len(df),dtype='int16')
+            store.append('df',df)
+
+            # store additonal fields in different blocks
+            df['int16_2'] = Series([1]*len(df),dtype='int16')
+            self.assertRaises(ValueError, store.append, 'df', df)
+
+            # store multile additonal fields in different blocks
+            df['float_3'] = Series([1.]*len(df),dtype='float64')
+            self.assertRaises(ValueError, store.append, 'df', df)
 
     def test_ndim_indexables(self):
         """ test using ndim tables in new ways"""