Ornamental Penship

I haven't seen any of these in person yet. Anyone want to share some examples from your collection?

I wish this one was mine:



More information and some famous names:
http://www.iampeth.com/golden_age.php

Have to love the quill pen..

I previously posted this in another thread, but here's one of my favorite revenues. It's an otherwise inexpensive stamp enhanced (IMO) by beautiful penmanship.



By the way, Historical DNA Collector, that cover is awesome. The little bird is icing on the cake.

The little tweety bird really makes that cover sing, DNA.

Agreed rustyc and ikey. It would still be beautiful without Mr. Tweety, but your eyes just end up there.

I love examples of great penmanship. Thanks to all for sharing.

For examples of great cursive script and guides to help you acquire the skills of good penmanship, go to:

http://operina.com/

And work through the free downloads in the 'blue list', Handwriting Repair and Cursive Italic News being most useful.

Terry

Beautiful penmanship is decorative and elegant, and for those with the hand-eye coordination to produce it I say, "More power to them." But it is an art and not a given.

I recall the agony as a fourth grader of being taught to write in cursive. We used wide ruled paper of a particular line spacing, designed to fit some clear plastic overlay templates inscribed with the alphabet written in the Spenserian hand they wanted us to learn. We were drilled in writing those letters over and over again until we could get them to line up regularly with the letters on the template. Not only did we have daily drills in it, our performance appeared on our report cards. I did poorly in it at the time, and recall the disappointment when my A and B reports were marred by that solitary D. I never learned the skill they wanted to teach, and through testing later learned that I do not have, and was not likely to develop, the hand eye coordination to do it well. So, to this day I mostly print my hand written notes and messages, and my signature is all but illegible. Thank God for electronic communication! Because of that experience no moods of nostalgia washed over me when I learned that the teaching of cursive was being discontinued. Maybe they never learned how to teach it well in the first place.

But like so many, I can appreciate the delicate intricacies of a well trained hand. Somewhere around here I think I still have a set of nibs I bought in order to pursue pen-and-ink drawing, futile effort though THAT was. Yet hope springs eternal, and beauty makes a home where it will. So I will content myself that though my hand cannot write the words, I can still compose an elegant sentence.

Terry, thanks for the link. I've always had terrible handwriting. The repair guide looks like it could help me.

essay, I'm in a similar boat. My hand and wrist joints are hyperflexible which makes learning penmanship much more difficult. I basically gave up once I reached a level just above chicken scratch. My teachers touted the importance of how we would use it throughout our lives. Meanwhile our school had just built their first computer lab. Most of my college professors refused cursive and preferred word processed print outs. Other than my signature, I have had no need for cursive in my adult life. In a similar manner, calculators were beginning to be allowed for exams.

Speaking of pen and ink drawing, these came from an autograph album which is also not mine:

ILS, those covers are great! I was hoping someone would post some more examples.

One word, revenuecollector: Wow.

Thank you RustyC for the nice compliment. I do have others but nothing of the magnitude already shown!



Yes revenuecollector that's definitely striking! WOW I love it!

The examples here are mostly older items, back in the day when penmanship and hand writing was widely used. I think more modern examples are even rarer and was pleasantly surprised when my wife received this very nice hand drawn 'get well' card a few months back.

While not quite as ornate as some of the other examples, I've always thought the clerk at the desk of the 3rd assistant Postmaster Greneral's office did a fine job canceling this 24C Navy.