the sliver guide 2 are of trapezoidal shape and constitute sliver contact faces 44 the bottom face 42 and the top face 43 are of identical size and have at the sliver guide inlet 45 a dimension c which is significantly greater than the length dimension d of the counterface 41 and the lateral wall 40 fig7 illustrates a sliver guide 2 in a perspective illustration the region of the sliver guide outlet 27 is tapered as shown at 27 34 to ensure the smallest possible distance from the nip 26 of the pull off rolls 4 5 the embodiment illustrated in fig8 a corresponds essentially to that shown in fig6 a 6b except that the top wall 43 is pivotal to assume a closed position fig8 a and an upwardly pivoted open position fig8 b for cleaning purposes the embodiments illustrated in fig9 a and 9b are two stage sliver guides in the embodiment shown in fig9 a a sliver guide 2 39 is connected with the sliver guide 2 by means of a latch type coupler 25 this connection may be readily released and thus the sliver guide 2 39 may be removed from the sliver guide 2 for an easy access.