Units of paper quantity of 480 sheets, now known as a 'short' ream. Reams of 472 and 516 sheets are still current, but in retail outlets paper is typically sold in reams of 500. As an old UK and US unit, a perfect ream was equal to 516 sheets. Certain types of specialist papers such as tissue paper, greaseproof paper, handmade paper, and blotting paper are still sold (especially in the UK) in 'short' reams of 480 sheets (20 quires of 24 sheets). However, the commercial use of the word 'ream' for quantities of paper other than 500 is now deprecated by such standards
Units of paper quantity the good quires ("insides"). These outside quires were known as "cassie quires" (from Fr. "cassée", "broken"), or "cording quires" and had only 20 sheets to the quire. The printer William Caslon in a book published in 1770 mentions both 24- and 25-sheet quires; he also details printer's wastage, and the sorting and recycling of damaged "cassie" quires. An 1826 French manual on typography complained that cording quires (usually containing some salvageable paper) from the Netherlands barely contained a single good sheet. It also became the name for any booklet small enough to be made from a single quire of paper.