Paper and Watermarks : Page 177

the nineteenth century, has largely disappeared. Andthe adoption of special papers and similar devices haspractically been abandoned as too costly and unnecessary.Paper may be, and often is, dyed various colors andused to give printed stamps a distinctly different look.The United States has used many colors of paper forits stamped envelopes principally to please users whowish something distinctive. Prior to World War II, thispractice of having various-colored envelopes had beenslowly cut down to the point that only three colors wereavailable—white, amber (a yellowish color) and blue.As a conservation measure all but white paper envelopeswere dropped from the schedules with the advent of thewar and the colors have never been restored to use.Incidentally, we have noted that all United States en-velopes have been printed on watermarked paper. Thiswatermark serves a particular purpose in identifying themanufacturer of the paper and also the quality of thepaper. It will come as a surprise to many that until re-cently you could purchase envelopes in either of twoqualities of paper— "standard" or "extra quality." Thelatter are the kind you received when you purchased oneor more at a Post Office window. Should you have wisheda box of envelopes, however, and to save a few cents ontheir cost you could have ordered "standard quality."However, this, too, has been discontinued. Today ourstamped envelopes are produced of one quality only andon white paper only.