Typewriter Talk / Use of red carbon copies?

**Posted by beak** 10-4-2025 21:22:04

In a package of vintage (foolscap) carbons just received there is one pack of red 'carbons'. Does anyone know the purpose of a red cc?
Some googling suggests that it was required when the reader was intended to understand that he or she was not reading the original document, but since the original could have been typed in red, that does not seem to hold water.
Another suggestion was that it was for accounting copies to show debits, but the idea of changing the carbon to type debits, and then returning to the black or blue again would seem a very tedious process.
Any thoughts?

**Posted by M. Höhne** 11-4-2025 07:38:00

My thought is that it is decorative, an alternative to other colors that a writer might choose, similar to paints being available in different colors. Other usefulness might include beak's suggestion, and perhaps for filing of different topics the way NCR packets were supplied with different colored papers with copies to be given to customer, salesman, accounting, and inventory. Perhaps for enlivening the love letters of gigolos, where indeed an original would be in red ink too.

**Posted by beak** 11-4-2025 08:17:28

Friend suggested 'Most Secret' document copies, but not in the UK I think. Have seen some MS docs, and they were, from memory at least, never red. - other nations (USA?) perhaps.

**Posted by beak** 11-4-2025 08:23:11

Mind you, it would be a good way to mark sensitive document copies and make them highly noticeable if they were left laying around on a desk.

**Posted by Eagle** 11-4-2025 14:19:52

Red carbon paper is also used for some artworking purposes.
Example: https://imcclains.com/newsletter/?p=254
I don't know but maybe the use as a carbon paper for typewriting purposes was not the primary intended application. But a nice possibility anyway.

**Posted by SoucekFan** 11-4-2025 15:17:13

M. Höhne wrote:
perhaps for filing of different topics the way NCR packets were supplied with different colored papers with copies to be given to customer, salesman, accounting, and inventory.

To me, this seems the most plausible.