Early Mail : Criss Cross Letters.

James recently posted a postcard with criss cross
writing, it's the latest I have ever seen, but is odd
in that it's not stamped?
If the sender sent the card in a cover, you would think he/she
would have written inside that.

Anyhows, for the record, here is an example beautiful criss cross writing..

ack: A first guide to stamp collecting-Neill granger Oxford Uni Press 1994

Interesting Rod

I think it would have been a little difficult to read at times, but, obviously this was done more frequently that most would realize.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Agreed Bujutsu, but different times,
plenty of time to read and work out what was being said
Letters would have been absolutely treasured.

I recall reading of the Duke of York's letters home from Portugal
when he was fighting Napoleon, 3 weeks was considered fast.
Prior to the penny post, letters were very expensive, well out of reach
of the common man I should think.

Rod there were several other cards in the lot also addressed and filled out with remarks, but no postage. Don't know how the recipient got them. They were all to the same lady.

Here is a link to some more info on criss crossed letters:

http://www.earsathome.com/webgil/xltr.html

Excellent mhc,
the webmasters are SCF members, Ron and Eunice :)

Rod I have to say the letter you posted is a beauty. To me it is simply a work of art.

This is one of my favorite covers:


And this is the write-up/translation:

chip, that is a wonderful letter. What are the squiggles (technical term) inside the box next to the addressees name, beside Fairfield, Conn.?

The "squiggles" are shorthand (phonography). There are more in the little scroll at the top left.

See: http://phono.cgpostal.com/

Here's a mailer from one of the larger publishers of phonographic texts:

I can see why, very lovely!

In some cases, criss-crossing meant the writer had only one sheet of paper but two pages worth of news. Out in the boonies, before the Civil War, paper was expensive and hard to find.

What a wonderful exhibit Chip.
Rather awe inspiring.
Where do you go when you begin research on this sort of thing?
It would make a nice story methinks.

Pitman's shorthand was (the) method in my time,
I recall my sister having Spirax notebooks full of those squiggles.
I hadn't come across "phonogrophy" in that sense before.

Re: Cross writing - Until 1847, postage was charged based on the mileage and number of sheets of paper, regardless of the size. That's one reason why envelopes were not used - they would have doubled the postage charges due. Likewise, if you enclosed 2 banknotes in a folded lettersheet, you'd be paying 3x the postage.

Cross writing was one way to double the amount you could write and not incur additional postage charges.

Re: Phonography. Start with one cool-looking cover, decide that it needs some company, search around for 10 years or so, get proficient with the Google machine to learn enough to write it up. (c.f. maps - http://maps.cgpostal.com)