Watermarks

Yesterday as I was reading the Folio Press Fine Edition of The Aspern Papers I noticed a Trident watermark in the bottom right corner of page 83. I hadn't noticed it before. Do all twenty volumes have watermarks?

I've looked through my copy of The Rape of the Lock and I can't see any watermarks.

>1 Powderfinger69:

I don't yet have The Aspern Papers, but I have nine of the others, of which half a dozen have laid paper. Without examining every leaf, I haven't found any watermarks in a random sample of each.

I've always taken it, please correct me if I'm in error, that even the simplest pattern might be called watermarking, without necessarily any distinctive symbol: if so, five of my seven volumes in the series, on Zerkall Rough and Van Gelder Old Dutch papers, are watermarked, though my casual examination has only found a regular grid of lines about an inch apart. The other two, not watermarked, are on Mohawk Superfine.

>4 terebinth:
I believe that parallel lines show the wire marks from laid paper; watermarks needed a pattern in the wires. Wove paper uses a wire grid that leaves no marks.

>4 terebinth:
>5 Jayked:

Yeah, there's no mistaking a watermark for something else. It's always a specific symbol, design, or even words, usually related to either the press or the paper maker.

Not always attractive I have to say, especially when it overlaps the text, though more often a nice touch.

I'll try to make a clear photo later tonight....

>5 Jayked: Thank you: there's always more to know, as an old song has it. According to Folio 60 The Aspern Papers is printed on white Magnani mould-made paper, as are the other 1990 issues in the series - Crabbe's Peter Grimes, Robert Graves love poems and Poems from the Greek Anthology - so presumably watermarks appear in those too.

The same symbol appears on pages 7, 31 and 47 of Robert Graves' Love Poems.

>8 terebinth: Yes. There's a good explanation on this page: http://www.zerkall.com/English/Info/MouldMadePaper.E.html

>1 Powderfinger69: My copy of 'The Aspern papers' has a watermark in the same place. Others in the series, which have used Magnani mould made paper, also have this watermark. Rather than a trident I interpreted the mark as a letter 'M' (for Magnani) surmounted by a cross, that said I have other Magnani paper with a different watermark.

>11 xrayman: "Others in the series, which have used Magnani mould made paper, also have this watermark."

This doesn't apparently include De Profundis (which has Magnani mould-made paper). I've looked right through it and can't find any. But it's the only one with this paper that I currently own, so I'm not doubting at all that others have the feature. Also, for the record, I can't see any watermarks in the Old Dutch and Zerkall mould-made papers of some of my other volumes in the series.

There might only be one watermark per large sheet, so it would be the luck of the draw if you happened to get one.

Has anyone else in the room come across paper watermarked for a specific work or author? I don't think I had until my fairly recent acquisition of the Manaton edition of John Galsworthy, begun in 1923 and limited to 500 copies for the UK - I believe his American publishers used the same sheets with a different binding and limitation - where the paper throughout is watermarked with a 'JG' monogram.

>14 terebinth:
I’ve seen paper custom-watermarked with the publisher name a few times.

I think the paper for the Arion Press “Moby Dick” has a whale watermark.

>12 boldface: Having just had a brief look through my copy of De Profundis, I too can find no watermark. However, have previously noticed it in others in the series, I now feel obliged to check them all. I will keep you posted.

>14 terebinth: Barcham Green paper watermarked with Wilson's jester symbol was commissioned for the wonderful bibliography The Work and Play of Adrian Wilson. Each folio sized page has either the jester or BG1982.

The paper in my 1902 Heinemann edition of the novels of Samuel Richardson is watermarked "Samuel Richardson". I think I have other examples, but I'll have to give it more thought.

>15 kermaier:, >17 olepuppy:, >18 boldface:

Thank you all for indulging my rather OT curiosity - generally restricted, then, it may be fair to say, to some seriously fine press work today and some major undertakings of the past which themselves would have had a fairly exclusive purchaser base at the time. Not necessarily so now, of course, and my 25 volumes of Galsworthy (the edition was originally of 21 volumes, but was increased to 25 and eventually to 30 as JG continued writing) set me back a little less than I'm not paying for the new Folio Three Musketeers. It too is from Heinemann, which prompts a guess that they may have commissioned paper with custom watermarking for further collected editions.

>1 Powderfinger69: >12 boldface: After an hour or two I can only find them in one other, 'The Poems of Robert Graves', on the same pages as noted above by >9 Ipcress_File:. They seem to be in consistent places but only in certain titles.