In days of old, I've notice, many writing surfaces had leather pieces inlaid where one might expect writing to occur. In not quite so old, but old at that, they used felt. Is there some reason for this?

Friction to hold the paper in place and a cushion to make writing easier and maybe as a blot to catch ink coming through the paper.

Once you've scraped a good nib over a hard wooden surface, you'll look for padding too.

Having a felt or leather backing makes writing on a single sheet of paper a lot nicer. If you use dip nibs its more than just nice, the backing will do the job of having several sheets of 'padding' paper so that the writing surface has some 'give' to it and the nib lays down ink properly.


If you're using a ballpen or rollerball or a Rotring 600 you can just grind the pen into desk/writing surface and write directly on the wood right?

I agree with the others, a leather pad would be used for cushioning. In the old days when dip-pens and quills were the writing-instruments of the time --- well...have any of you ever tried writing with a dip-pen on a completely hard surface like a wooden tabletop?

I can assure you it's not easy. The scraping is bloody annoying.

I imagine the leather provided padding to give the nib a smoother journey across the page. Much like how it's smoother to write in a book rather than on a single piece of paper lying on a tabletop.

If you don't pad the paper then a BP will mark most woods due to the required pressure to make it function.