Handwriting

Comment

Comment by Fleur Helsingor on June 25, 2013 at 6:56pm

This beautiful postcard arrived in my mail yesterday, and it was a nice surprise! Nice work, and thanks so much.

I'll be sending you something soon.

Cheers!

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on June 19, 2013 at 3:58pm

Stay off ebay! I've got some very old letters that go back as far as (without looking) 1790 in England and 1810 in France. Postage stamps were introduced in those countries in 1840 and 1851, respectively so they predate today's postal systems. I can find old French postal letters* here in flea markets for less than €10 (about $6?).

The form of the address on some of the early English ones is interesting: "Mr Roddy, Artist, Hull". That's all -- no street name. And they got delivered (as long I suppose as there was only one artist in Hull called 'Roddy'.

The End

*Modern French letters cost €1 for a packet of 2

Comment by Kevin M. Roddy on June 19, 2013 at 12:47pm

I did not know that about vertical and horizontal lines. I guess being frugal won over being linear.

P.S. It's appalling how much people on ebay want for a single letter from this time. Unfortunately before I got into Mail Art I passed up the chance at a local flea market to buy a whole box of things like this for about $20. On ebay I would probably have to spend $100-$200 for the same amount of material.

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on June 19, 2013 at 5:18am

Great! (Do you know that in the early days of paid postage -- 1850-1900 or so in the UK-- people would write letters with both vertical and horizontal lines so that they could save money on paper & postge? Such letters are incredibly diffiuclt to read, but great fun to decipher)