Designs impressed into paper while in course of manufacture by means of a projecting wire, on the mould, or in the case of machine made qualities on the dandy roll. Watermarks were employed as early as 1282. They served to identify the product of each paper mill and the designs chosen (many of them extremely complicated) also expressed emblematically the tenets of the manufacturers, which were handed down traditionally from father to son. It was customary, and the custom has survived until the present day, for paper mills to use similar designs in common. These standard designs were triflingly modified by each individual maker; they have in many cases been the origin of modem terminology, such as Foolscap, Pott, Post and so forth.
