Etymology of "nick" in, in the nick of time?

Maybe this reference helps, although more specific references would be better.

Sometime round about the 1580s the phrase in the nick or in the very nick began to be used for the critical moment, the exact instant at which something has to take place. The idea seems to have been that a nick was a narrow and precise marker, so that if something was in the nick it was precisely where it should be.

A tally, or nick-stick was used to keep track of time, of points in sporting events, of commercial transactions and (till as late as 1826) of official book-keeping records.

With the widespread use of the tally it is not surprising that reference to it should enter popular parlance. To nick it down for instance meant 'to record something' and to nick the nick, 'to hit the right time' for something.

In the nick of time is the only extant expression.It probably has sporting origins.Team scores were notched up on nick-sticks and when a winning goal or goal was scored just before the end of the contest it was "in the nick of time".

INFO SOURCE: Dictionary of Idioms and Their Origins by Linda and Roger Flavell

Did a little research online, inspired by @Nick Otime and Preetie Sekhon's answers

A Glossary of North Country Words In Use. From An Original Manuscript, In The Library Of John George Lambton, ESQ., M.P. With Considerable Additions (1825) John Trotter Brockett, F.S.A ¹

NICK-STICK, a tally, or notched stick, by which accounts are kept. This simple mode of reckoning seems to have been the only one known to the Northern nations. V. Jam. When a woman, in a certain state, goes longer than her calculation, she is said among the vulgar to have lost her nick-stick.

In the second edition,² dated 1829, the entire book was revised and included a far greater number of etymological references. The book lost its original title and was renamed:

A Glossary of North Country Words, With Their Etymology, and Affinity to other Languages; and Occasional Notices of Local Customs and Popular Superstitions (Emphasis mine)

Nick-stick, a tally, or notched stick, by which accounts are kept after the ancient method. This simple mode of reckoning seem to have been the only one known to the Northern nations. Olaus Wormius gives us a representation of the tallies used by the ancient Danes, of which each party kept one. School-boys keep a nick-stick, with notches correspondent to the number of days preceding the vacation, from which with delight they cut daily one nick, up to the " very nick of time" for dulce domum.