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Nowadays, when one wants to begin to learn copperplate,or spencerian, one of the first questions I usually see is "well, what kind of paper should I get?" Granted, there is nothing wrong with wanting the best paper for the job, and in todays market, there seems to be a plethora of paper types that are made spegifcally for pointed pen calligraphy, which I am admittedly extremely thankful for. That being said, I always wonder if the pioneers of pointed pen calligraphy were as spoiled as us when it came to paper selection. In my mind, I cant help but imagine that, in its infancy,calligraphers had very few types and weights of paper to choose from. I know that as calligraphers today, we are fortunate that there is seemingly "special paper" designed to be used in the different disciplines of handwriting/calligraphy. Can anybody offer me some insight as to whether or not a copperplate calligrapher could go out and buy practice pads specifically for use in copperplate or spencerian scripts, or did they have to make due with what they were able to obtain ? Just a question that I have always thought about bur figured if I askedn it here, I'd be thought of as some one who had a very limited knowledge of what penmanship consister of in the early days of the Golden Age of penmanship.