Another defining characteristic of a US postage stamp is the stamp paper. A ribbed stamp paper is called "laid". A plain stamp paper is called "wove". USPS adhesive stamps are printed on wove paper. The embossed stamp envelopes that are sold in US postal stores. As a paper conservator, I am fascinated by the structure of paper and how different it can look, feel, and even sound—it can be rough or smooth, glossy or matte; it can have varying shades of white or be colorful; and it can sometimes rustle when carefully handled. These are properties that paper conservators try to describe when looking closely at a work of art on paper, and I invite you to take a closer look with me.

Left) Eighteenth-century illustration of a beating engine, from Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 5, Paris, 1767. (Right) A kitchen blender achieves roughly the same effect, breaking up old used paper soaked in water to create a pulp. (Image credits: Left “ Papermaking. Plate VIII” The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Abigail Wendler Bainbridge. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2013. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Right Hannah Wills) In a wet state, the paper pulp (a dilute dispersion of cellulose fibers in water) is squeezed through a wire mesh to drain the pulp. During this process, a roller with a mesh pattern is pressed into the wet pulp, displacing the cellulose fiber.

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Acronym for the US "Bureau of Engraving & Printing". The Bureau of Engraving and Printing took over the printing of U.S. postage stamps in 1894. Laid paper is a type of paper having a ribbed texture imparted by the manufacturing process. In the pre-mechanical period of European papermaking (from the 12th century into the 19th century), laid paper was the predominant kind of paper produced. Its use, however, diminished in the 19th century, when it was largely supplanted by wove paper. [1] Laid paper is still commonly used by artists as a support for charcoal drawings. The most obvious characteristic of laid paper is the ridges, as you can see in the picture above (apologies for the grubby ruler!). It's also usually a higher weight paper. The ridges can be what people adore, and also what others hate! Laid paper is often thought of as higher quality, and notebooks or writing sets that use laid paper are at the higher end of the market. It's also often used by artists for charcoal drawings. Command papers: these are papers published by the Government which they consider to be of interest to Parliament. They include statements of Government policy and proposals for new policies or new legislation, and annual reports of departments.

i] Dard Hunter, Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft (New York: Dover, 1978), 178. Apart from unintentional variations from mixing it, it may be affected by the amount of moisture in the atmosphere during printing or drying or by the temperature of the air-- variations in these other aspects give rise to variations in colour, which are called "shades" by philatelists. Perforations There have also been instances where paper prepared for printing sheets of a certain size of a stamp has been used for stamps larger or smaller in which case the watermark will fall irregularly. There are often watermarks, usually consisting of inscriptions, on the marginal paper surrounding the sheet of stamps and those are known as marginal watermarks.Produced to exacting standards since 1888,Conqueror is recognised as the superior choice for brand identity and corporate communications. The unique touch and appearance have become the benchmark for quality and the range is well-known for its distinctive watermark. Conqueror CX22. Ultra-smooth and lustrous, Conqueror CX22s low-friction surface produces a high-definition print result. iv] Theresa Fairbanks and Scott Wilcox, Papermaking and the Art of Watercolour in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Paul Sandby and the Whatman Paper Mills (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art in association with Yale University Press, 2006), 68. The first stage in the papermaking process is to select the material from which the paper is going to be made. In the eighteenth century, this would typically have been cotton and linen rags. Towards the end of the century, shortages of rags, in part caused by an increased use of paper for printing, meant that makers began to experiment with other materials. In 1801, the very first book printed on recycled paper was published in London—that is, paper that had been printed on once before already. [ii] In 18th-century Europe, the idea of covering the mould with a tight metal mesh, which keeps the pulp from sinking between the wires, resulted in the invention of a paper with a smooth surface, free of chain or laid lines. Because of its even structure, this paper is called wove paper.

Clearly, this is paper that does not have the china clay coating or glossy finish on them. They are not as smooth as the coated papers, as it has a slightly grainy texture to it This is the most common form of paper found in your local stationery supplier and is ideal for use in laser printers and photocopiers. It is also the preferred paper type for business stationery and is widely used for this purpose. Uncoated paper is becoming more and more popular for the printing of prestigious brochures and catalogues for companies who want to give a more natural feel to their image but without the expense of recycled material, and for this reason its the best alternative for the coated art paper. This category of paper type is also available in several varieties such as: Laid paper Modern papermaking techniques use a dandy roller to create the tracing pattern during the early stages of manufacture, similar to how a watermark is added to handmade papers. Surface textures can be created by the mesh mold that paper sheets are made on or applied by a roller to machine-made paper. Lithographed stampsare printed from an absolutely flat surface so that the ink of the design lies smoothly on the surface of the stamp, the characteristics of stamps printed by this method being a flat, smooth appearance.In Europe, paper was originally made on moulds, which are wooden frames with a tight web of wires supported by wooden struts. A “vatman” would dunk the moulds in a vat filled with pulp and lift them up again, slightly agitating the pulp collecting on the mould while doing so to form an even sheet. He then would pass the mould on to the so-called coucher, who would press the now-formed paper sheet onto a piece of felt. The screen was originally made with brass wires strung across the length of the mould (laid lines), secured at several crossing wires (chain lines). These wires left an impression in the paper that can be seen when holding the sheet up to the light. We call this laid paper. LAST DAY CANCELLATION: The last day of use of a postmark or the last day cancel of a post office which is being closed.

As the fiber shifts, localized areas of higher and lower density are produced in a laying pattern, and the pattern is also created on the surface of the paper. Therefore, the pattern is apparent both when looking through the sheet and when viewing its surface.There is the paperon which it is printed, the design, by which we usually mean the pictorial part of the stamp, the inscriptions, or lettering and figures of value, the inkwith which the design is printed, varying in colour, the gum, and the means of separation i.e. the perforation. The term "shade" also requires explanation. A stamp is printed with the fixed intention that, so far as is possible, every copy of it shall be in exactly the same colour and in the same depth of that colour. But printer's ink is curiously wayward stuff. In attempting to replicate the craft of eighteenth-century papermaking, I really only approximated the process, making substitutions for equipment and improvising a number of techniques, particularly when it came to removing my delicate wet sheets of paper from the mould. I think the biggest lesson I learnt was to have a greater appreciation of the material, and just how many skills and processes went into crafting each sheet of paper in the eighteenth century. Characteristics of individual sheets such as colour, texture and markings had not caught my attention in the archives previously, but I now find them fascinating for what they can reveal about the nature of the fibres used, the construction of the paper mould, and the processes followed by each individual papermaker. Artists have many different types of art paper to choose from, ranging from super-smooth surfaces to very rough, "toothy" papers. Some papers are best with soft pencils, pastels, and charcoal, while others are better suited for watercolors. You will find no shortage of paper to work with. The hardest part is deciding which to use.