How to fold your 18th century letter.

so tonight I thought I would do a little video demonstration of how I fold my letters it's not to say this is the only way to fold the letter but it's the way that I fold it based on period examples that I have seen so what I do is I start by folding the paper about one inch up on either side by the way on this paper I have trimmed an inch off of the length so it's one inch and narrower than the standard eight-and-a-half by eleven sheet of paper that way it looks a little less anachronistic you don't have to have one of these bone folders but I do and I enjoy it so I use it to my advantage and then I can so then I come up from the bottom about like that and then before I crease it I go ahead and fold it again to see where it will hit and I don't like how far that is so I'll go up a little bit farther and try that out for size and that's a little too much so I need to try to hit somewhere in the middle which is about here and that looks about right to me so I'll go ahead and crease it here with my finger and then I'll go ahead and crease it here now at this point in my letter I always write something along this edge here and a little something here I've seen an original from Francis Marion that he wrote his name here and an extra scribble or two a last note I'll even sometimes write extra things in here in the spirit of using up all the paper so at this point I'll go and write that and I'll be right back okay so now that I've written a little more along the sides I'll go back now fold it so you're folding it into thirds basically one two and three and I generally try to leave about an inch and a half to two inches at the top maybe that's a little a little too short but what I do now is I go ahead and I take this finger and I pinch to kind of curve the the paper like so then I'll tuck this portion into this flap here just like so and then I'll do the same which is always tricky down here on the other side like that and then I'll kind of stuff it all in together and try to find where it evens out as far as getting it even from your top here sometimes it's a little bit easier than others you can't have to work it all out increase it as you go I don't really commit to it until I'm done at this point then when I'm pleased with it all the way to increase it a little stronger so looks like that time I didn't get it quite even no worries a lot of the originals weren't either so at this point I'll go and I'll crease it with my bone folder like so and sometimes this annoys me the little flap that it leaves right here sometimes you can kind of tuck it in a little bit tidier like that before you go to the final touch sometimes you can't so this creates a nice little packet and it does not require the use of an envelope so that's how I fold my letters it's a little bit off but at least it is stuck together okay so after I have added the direction for the letter and the last I added the last post that would be delivered to which in this case is Fort Detroit I've added some extra features along the way for interest put my seal and the bishop mark with June the 30th which will be the date that it should be received at Fort Detroit looking forward right so this letter is ready to put in the saddlebags of the post rider so I hope you've enjoyed this if you like this video and others like it please subscribe and like the video and leave comments or questions below I'm doing a little short videos because I think that it's more interesting to be able to search for exactly what you're looking for and maybe one day I'll make a compilation of all these put together so this one is going to Detroit in the country of Michigan so this is a shout out to Ilene Alex if you're watching this Ilene I hope you enjoy your letter and thank you for being interested in 18th century penmanship and writing so thank you for watching

Channel: Pumpkintown Primitives

Views: 95,531

Keywords: Stampless, Postal History, 18th Century Letter, Folding your letter, Wax Seal, Calligraphy, Penmanship, Quill Pen

Id: TT84tt3jjR4

Length: 7min 7sec (427 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 15 2020