Onionskin

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Typewritten page of canary onionskin, 1912. Note the translucency in the upper right corner were the red library stamp is visible through from the transverse.

Onionskin or onion skin is a thin, light-weight, strong, often translucent paper. It was usually used with carbon paper for typing duplicates in a typewriter, for permanent records where low bulk was important, or for airmail correspondence.[1] It typically has a 9 pound basis weight, and may be white or canary colored.

In the typewriter era, onion skin often had a deeply-textured cockle finish which allowed for easier erasure of typing mistakes, but other glazed and unglazed finishes were also available then and may be more common today.[2]