On some books, I've noticed that they have colors on the edges of the pages. For instance, on my Tikkun:
And on a G'mara (part of the Talmud):
What is the point of these colors? Are they only found on religious books?
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Sign up to join this communityOn some books, I've noticed that they have colors on the edges of the pages. For instance, on my Tikkun:
And on a G'mara (part of the Talmud):
What is the point of these colors? Are they only found on religious books?
This is actually fairly common and has no real significance. It's a purely decorative process called edge painting (or fore-edge painting) because it's color painted on the fore-edge of the book (go figure).
It's common on religious texts, but that's only because religious texts simply tend to be better made and better decorated. It's quite general, though.
While edge painting is done on some high-price books, I've also seen solid-color edge painting done in the early 1980s or thereabouts on some inexpensive children's paperbacks that were made from cheaper paper stock, and asked a librarian about it. From what I was told, if some pages are printed on paper that is more brownish than others, this can cause an ugly striped appearance on the edges of the book. Applying paint can hide this. I don't think I've noticed such painting done recently, but I've not really looked for it. What's significant, though, is that sometimes a simple monochromatic paint job may be a result of efforts to make cheaply-produced books look better, rather than a to showcase genuinely expensive production.