The type of paper is just one of the many features used in, you guessed it, descriptive bibliographies so that scholars and book collectors will know which edition and printing of a book they have. In the case of The House of Mirth, knowing that Figure 1 has “laid paper” helps to determine that it is the first or second printing of the first edition. Figure 2 is on wove paper, and, since according to Garrison “Starting with the third Scribners printing, wove paper was used instead of laid” (80), I know that Figure 2 is from a third or later printing. Laid Paper: One of the two basic types of paper used in stamp printing. When held to the light, the paper shows alternate light and dark crossed lines. Chalk-surfaced paperor coated paper belongs to the latter class, as any attempt at cleaning brings away the preparation with which the paper is coated, at once altering the appearance of the stamp. A test for chalk-surfaced paper is to touch slightly the surface of the stamp with the edge of a silver coin. 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. A paper distinguished by parallel lines or watermarks a few millimeters apart, as if ribbed, from parallel wires in the grid the paper pulp is "laid" on.

The screen was originally made with brass wires strung across the length of the mould (laid lines), secured at several crossing wires (chain lines).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.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. My finished sheet of paper, trimmed down into a small square ready for use. (Image credit: Hannah Wills) Some method was, therefore, necessary for indicating the arrangement of the holes, and as these were usually spaced regularly, it was decided that the number of holes in a space of two centimetres should indicate the perforation of a given side of a stamp. Thus the description "Perf. 15" does not mean that there are 15 perforations on every side of a stamp, for naturally, the longer side would have the most holes, but that, in any space of two centimetres on any side of the stamp, you will count 15 holes. Act papers: some papers are required by law to be laid before Parliament. They include reports and accounts of some statutory bodies, such as executive agencies.

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.

Watermarks

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. A laid paper is a type of paper which has fine ridges on its surface, historically produced during manufacture. Originally, laid paper was made by hand in large vats. W ove paper has a uniform surface and no texture or watermark. 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. 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 Paper: see Various papers under name or type of paper; 1: since most stamps are printed on paper, faults in the paper are sought by collectors as freaks or oddities, in some cases, the type of paper is important in the identification of some stamps.