SF-01
Watermark
A device formed in the paper while it is still wet, so it is part of the sheet rather than something added to it.
Watermark ×1
Specification
- House code
- SF-01
- Method
- True watermark, formed in the wet sheet
- Apparent at
- ×1
- Deters
- Substitution of ordinary paper for house stock.
- The recipient’s check
- Hold the document up to a window or a lamp. The mark appears within the sheet itself, lighter and darker rather than printed on top, and looks the same from either side.
A watermark is made before there is any printing to speak of. While the sheet is still a suspension of fibre and water, a raised or recessed device on the papermaking roll displaces fibre — thinner where the device stands proud, denser where it is cut away. The sheet dries around that difference, and the difference is permanent.
Because the mark is a variation in the thickness of the paper, it is not a layer. It cannot be lifted, and it reads identically from both sides. That is the whole of its value: it certifies the substrate, which is the one part of a document that has to be committed to before anything else happens.
What it is good for
Watermarked stock is the sensible foundation for any document that will be examined casually and often — a diploma on a wall, a membership certificate in a frame, a ticket handed to a steward. It asks nothing of the person checking it beyond a light source, and it is the first thing a trained examiner looks for.
We hold four watermarked stocks in the house register and will cut a bespoke roll device for editions above roughly ten thousand sheets.