Vellum was discovered and developed by the Hebrews in the early years of the first millennium BC. At its conception, has been a see-through vellum writing surface made of non-tanned animal skin. It was produced in small quantities by first cleaning and removing hair from the skin and drying of the skin under tension. Distributors vellum was not only Polish skin with a pumice stone. Pumice is a porous volcanic rock that is valued worldwide for its abrasive qualities. Vellum makers followed the pumice brush with a coating of talcum powder. Talk acts as a filler, and has served as the final step in the production sequence.

During its first use, is assessed for documents on vellum paper, backlit, like light shows easily through the thin fur of animals. Overtime manufacturers have started producing vellum with the fur of stillborn animals to save on production costs. Often, skins of sheep and goats are used in the production of parchment, a term used interchangeably with vellum. The parchment is valued in many other applications as a writing surface, current uses include sheets and highlights.

In the 1990s a kind of paper with many of the same characteristics as the vellum created. This new document is produced by stamping treated pulp and cotton fiber. The result is less shiny, less translucent, milky white in color and slightly thicker form of parchment, which is defined as imitation parchment, vellum Japanese vellum or vegetables. In the days present vellum paper has a wide range of postcards, applications, certificates, manuscripts, scrapbooks, and contain trace.

The parchment is now sold in a variety of cream and pastel shades, and even the opportunity for bright colors and decorated forms. Vellum can even be bought with gold embossing, marble decorations, or metallic properties. Vellum can be purchased with a full range of lighter 50 gsm (grams per square meter) to the heavy 120 gsm. Non-vellum imitation is still used today in sheets. The acoustic properties are evaluated in ethnic hand drums used by most Indian tribes. Suspended vellum drum heads are sold in different diameters and thicknesses of the most diverse needs.