
How parchment is made - ohjeez
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n16/mary-wellesley/short-cuts
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jimnotgym
The UK parliament only recently stopped using vellum to record it's acts[0]. 
The damage this would do to the firm in the article was chief as a reason to
carry on using it. 

An aside: I often wonder when it is the case that the laws of England are so
inacessible, how can anyone reasonably be expected to follow the said laws? 

[0][https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Sum...](https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7451)

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toomanybeersies
> The damage this would do to the firm in the article was chief as a reason to
> carry on using it. 

And that's largely why the US government keeps minting 1 cent coins.  It costs
the US government over $50 million per year to mint pennies, not to mention
the wasted time counting and transporting the things.  The zinc lobby is a
large part of the reason they're still produced, there's no practical reason
for them any more and a lot of countries have removed their lowest
denomination coins. 

~~~
grawprog
Ya Canada got rid of pennies a few years ago.  I see the uselessness of them,
but I kind of miss them.  Plus, it's a little odd being charged a different
price if you use debit or credit than if you use cash.  I know it's only a few
cents but it still feels weird.  Though i suppose when you find a penny now
it's extra lucky.  Though strangely, i've probably found more American pennies
in my change than Canadian ones in recent times.  I had one automated machine
give me some instead of dimes recently...that was somewhat disappointing...

I dunno there's just something about your money having a physical
representation down to the lowest used value in general business.  Though, as
far as I know, it actually cost more to produce pennies than they were
actually worth. 

So many things feel less tangible now than when i was young I guess it's
inevitable money would go that way too, but it's still a weird feeling.  I
remember the days when using a debit card was a strange thing to do and many
places didn't accept anything but cash. 

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rollulus
Before I read Tim Harford's excellent "50 things..." book [1] I had no idea
how parchment was made.  What struck me most was that to make books available
to the general public, the invention of the printing press may have been less
important than the (re)invention of paper: for a bible on parchment one needed
500 sheep! 

[1]:
[http://timharford.com/books/50things/](http://timharford.com/books/50things/)

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shalmanese
Video of the process:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-SpLPFaRd0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-SpLPFaRd0)

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adultSwim
paper > parchment

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFExEEUvlDk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFExEEUvlDk)

