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On this subject you can dive into the story of the missing "Doctor Who" TV serials.

Some tape of master's were infamously reused to store other contents. Beside the whole archive problem come from the reusable nature and scarcity of the chosen storage. I think I've read something about reusing paper as well in medieval time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes



> I think I've read something about reusing paper as well in medieval time.

This mostly happened with parchment, not paper, but otherwise you are right. It is called a palimpsest.[1] Sometimes the writing under the writing can be reconstructed as happened with the oldest copy of Cicero's Republic.[2]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest

[2]: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=3059




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