What do you call a Protective Guide Page placed over a Stationery sheet?

[yachtsilverswan]

Particularly when using Crane cotton stationery (or really any good paper), I have found that if my writing hand is the least bit sweaty, that when I write down to the part of the stationery sheet where my hand was resting, the ink will begin to feather - badly. It has to be the oils and perspiration from my hand causing this because the upper parts of the stationery sheet never ever feather. The page does not seem damp or moist - there is no discoloration, but it must have absorbed some moisture from my hand.

 

I enjoy writing out on my back deck in the evenings after work. And I live in Georgia - so in the summer we Southerners just have to deal with a little perspiration.

 

So to remedy this little annoyance, I have taken to using an over-sheet - a guide sheet placed over the stationery sheet, part-way down the page. My hand rests atop this guide sheet rather than resting on the stationery sheet itself.

 

Presto - no more feathering.

 

My question is this - in the days before air conditioning, in Victorian and Edwardian times, when there was a name for everything - was there a name for a protective over-sheet used in this way? It's not a blotter - it's not being used to blot excess ink. The sheet is being used to shield the stationery from perspiration and oil in the hand.

 

What did our meticulous, name-obsessed forbearers call this protective sheet of paper?

 

[amper]

A flysheet, perhaps?

[wvbeetlebug]

This is a good question. I'm bumping this up for you.

[Artbeast]

Is this a trick question?

 

Btw... a flysheet or endpaper, as we call it in the states, is that decorative first in the book which greets you and also the one which says good-bye at the end of the book.

[Songwind]

I tried finding something, but all I came up with were terms related to types of stationery, or to handwriting, not to equipment for handwriting. Bah. *keeps looking*

[jkenton]

What did our meticulous, name-obsessed forbearers call this protective sheet of paper?

 

I recall a description of a thin piece of leather that middle ages scribes rested on their parchments for much this same purpose. Heel of hand rested on leather, quill with ink lays down the letter shapes.

 

Tangential question: Are all scribes who transcribed Bibles known as Illuminators, or just the people who applied the colorful and golden initials for each section?

[Tangelfoot]

Tangential question: Are all scribes who transcribed Bibles known as Illuminators, or just the people who applied the colorful and golden initials for each section?

 

 

Scribes write words, illuminators embelish with pictures and rubricators put in the red lines.

 

Tan

 

Accountants would wear sleeve protectors to keep the sheets clean.

Edited June 6, 2008 by Tangelfoot

[CraigR]

I want to say that I have heard them called "guards." /Craig

[orpheus]

I don't know what they're called, but I just wanted to chip in that as a lefty, I deal with a similar problem of smearing what I've just written. It's possible for me to avoid by holding my hand in (for me) awkward positions, but that's no fun. And when writing letters, I like to use Rhodia or Clairefontaine paper and a bold wet nib, so smearing is always a danger. My solution is to keep a guard sheet of paper between my left wrist/hand and the writing paper.

[Randal6393]

Pulled out the basics books on calligraphy. Edward Johnston shows the protective sheet over a paper being written on but does not specifically name the protective sheet. Marie Angel calls her protective sheet a "guard". The two best books for showing writing desks and setting up a scribe's table are Edward Johnston's Writing & Illuminating & Lettering and Graily Hewitt's Lettering. Both are listed on Amazon.com.

 

And, yea, Ray. I've used a guard to protect my writing for over thirty years. I still manage to goof things up every once in a while. Sort of part of the human condition, I guess.

 

Yours,

Randal

[JDlugosz]

I don't know what they're called, but I just wanted to chip in that as a lefty, I deal with a similar problem of smearing what I've just written. It's possible for me to avoid by holding my hand in (for me) awkward positions, but that's no fun. And when writing letters, I like to use Rhodia or Clairefontaine paper and a bold wet nib, so smearing is always a danger. My solution is to keep a guard sheet of paper between my left wrist/hand and the writing paper.

 

Leonardo (from Vinci) didn't put up with that. He wrote in mirror.

 

How about a modern solution? A partial glove that covers the pinkie edge of the hand and has nylon/teflon/ulmw-pe studs on it to glide across the page but only touch at tiny points and arranged to generally miss the fresh line. That's adapted from part of a writing glove idea I'm musing over for people with mobility problems or chronic pain.

 

--John

 

 

[KenS]

About a hundred and fifty years ago (slight exaggeration) when I worked as a printer we would use a piece of paper in the same manner while preparing a paper master. I doubt that it was a "correct" term, but we refereed to it a s a "slip sheet".

Ken.

[Tweel]

A partial glove that covers the pinkie edge of the hand and has nylon/teflon/ulmw-pe studs on it to glide across the page but only touch at tiny points and arranged to generally miss the fresh line.

I've occasionally considered a "cutaway" glove like that, but only to keep oil & perspiration off the page. For a lefty underwriter, how about a single "glide" at the outer corner of the heel of the hand, and a soft sling/pocket across the palm to keep the tips of the little & ring fingers off the page?

 

-- Brian

 

[Lozzic]

I have always called it a 'guard sheet', that being a regular piece of cheap paper to rest the hand on; I usually fold an A4 sheet in half to make one and I always wash my hands prior to writing. Sometimes calligraphers and what not wear cotton gloves when writing their best work, though I never have. However I do often wear cotton gloves when handling paper in the drawer and pen nibs (I use tweezers for pen nibs too) so as not to get grease on them.

I am sure that the Victorian calligraphers or Medieval scribes or whoever would have had names for them, though I don't know what.

[donwinn]

About a hundred and fifty years ago (slight exaggeration) when I worked as a printer we would use a piece of paper in the same manner while preparing a paper master. I doubt that it was a "correct" term, but we refereed to it a s a "slip sheet".

Ken.

 

Slip sheet also refers to a piece of paper separating copies of different sheets. Here is a link to an explanation about how to use slip sheets in a copier.

 

When I used to get large copy runs done at Office Depot (not affiliated) the copy center would put colored slip sheets between each stack of say 1500 copies, and stack them in a standard paper box. That way I could easily identify where one batch of copies ended, and the next began.

 

Donnie