Fonts That Fake Handwriting

Of peripheral concern to collectors of covers & postcards is whether/not the handwritten address/message was/not written by hand.

http://goscf.com/t/43223 ... the Dear Doctor Pentothal postcards are an example of a lovely not-so-handwritten message.

Shown below is an example of an address that is easily detected as not-so-handwritten because the street name is repeated in the city name.

Clearly, a sign of the times: factory food that claims to present & taste as home-made, down-home just-one-of-us-common-folks running for public office ... as well as all that genuinely achronistic merchandise they sell at your local Cracker Barrel store.

Q/ Does anybody else set aside these Fonts That Fake Handwriting ?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey



Bonus! This cover bore Mailer's Postmark Permit #121 from zip 24506:

Script is disappearing everywhere from human hand written materials, and now computers are using it to dress up documents. Where did we go wrong?

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Good question!

Q/ What made them think that the addressee would recognize their own name?

Happily, 9-digit-zip sorting at least got the letter carrier within striking distance of the addressee!

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Good point. That is all pointing to the fact that we are becoming more digitized. We are becoming a number!

My brother has been receiving mail addressed to someone else, but since his address is on it with his six digit- letter/number postal code it gets left in his mailbox.

Mailperson delivering has informed me they do not care who's name is on it, just as long as it is put to the address given. Pretty soon letters will be nameless and coded only. Don't believe it is far off.

Mike

I think that it is actual handwriting (albeit incredibly consistent handwriting).

When I digitally overlay the street 'Woodhaven' with the town 'Woodhaven' there are deltas especially towards the end of the word as shown here


Now go back and visually compare the 'n' in ikeys image, you can see the difference. I assume that this person handwrites 'Woodhaven' a lot and muscle memory is coming into play here.

Also consider that digital fonts have to follow rules about kerning. The ZIP code does not have the same consistent spacing between between each character.
Don

It is not just the 'n' the loop for the 'd' is bigger for the one below.

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Q/ Do you mean to suggest that the sender was imitating a computer imitating a person?

Well-spotted, Dan.

How appalling that anyone would laboriously hand-address junk mail.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey (who now feels bad about ignoring one dozen catalogs, driving the company to such desperate measures)

Distinguishing printed handwriting from actual manuscript writing is particularly important in an area I collect: free frank covers. Here is an example. The top cover is a printed signature of the Treasurer of the United States, F.E. Spinner c.1863. The longer cover has two signatures, one printed and one real. You can tell the real signature under magnification if you look at the places where the lines cross -- if it appears one line is on top of the other, it is not printed. A printed signature will have an even amount of ink along the signature, including where lines cross.

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Well, okay, what about this one?



Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

What's interesting is that Woodhaven Blvd only runs about half a mile in the area known as Woodhaven Queens. It runs north-south for about 3.5 miles. I used to occasionally spend time there as a teenager. I suspect that it is not handwritten, but just made to like that way.

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I would think that Woodhaven Blvd is named because it leads to (or from) Woodhaven.

Consider nearby Astoria Blvd, of comparable length, but only one end of which runs thru Astoria.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

It's not nearly that simple.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodh...y_Boulevards

And Astoria Blvd was renamed after the area was named for John Jacob Astor; the streets had other names when it was known as Hallett's Cove. I live nearby, and am on Astoria Blvd fairly often.

Ikey, the second example is also a computer font. The individual letter shapes are exactly the same in every occurrence, something an artist would be hard-pressed to do by hand. And that's aside from the spray dot pattern around and in the letters. The latter tips off many modern forgeries, like on the Saudi/Hejaz overprints done on full sheets with correct characteristics for each position(!).

I like the second font and am off to find it. I have trouble handwriting long messages and this is more legible than my usual scrawl anyway.

Some teenagers take advantage of the fact that a person's hearing declines as one ages and can set their smartphones to ring at tones that most people over 30 or so cannot hear. The advantage that most people over 30 have over most teenagers is many of them cannot write or even read script. :)

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We have another winner!



Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey