Paper including one or more multi-tonal watermarks having full tonality, and an improved watermarking tool for manufacturing such paper

A method of forming a watermarking device, the method comprising:

• providing a wire-mesh element including an embossed wire area having a wire-mesh relief structure, the wire-mesh relief structure comprising indicia of a watermark;
• providing an electrotype element including an embossed electrotype area having an electrotype relief structure, and including a perforation pattern, the perforation pattern comprising perforations based on a half-tone image of the indicia of the watermark;
• and
• coupling the electrotype element to the wire-mesh element such that the wire-mesh relief structure and the electrotype relief structure overlap such that the indicia of the watermark are in register.

A watermarked document comprising:

• a substrate;
• and
• a watermark element in at least one surface of the substrate,
• wherein the watermark element comprises a document relief structure having (i) a wire-meshed indicia and (ii) an electrotyped indicia at least partially overlapping the wire-meshed indicia to form an overlapping area such that the watermark element has full tonality in the overlapping area,
• wherein the electrotyped indicia comprises a halftone rendering of an image, and
• wherein the wire-meshed indicia and electrotyped indicia are in register in the overlapping area.