Who Here Has The Oldest Letter???

I love old letters... the handwriting can be just beautiful to behold.
With my leaning towards "things Italian" have have over the past 10 years or so collected about 75 or so prestamp Italian covers on a "oh that's nice, I must have that" basis.

The oldest three I have are 1688, 1676 and 1614 (1614 images attached)

What really old letters from anywhere do people have???
Anything before 1614?

I would love to get something from Italy from the 1500's!

Regards
Gavin

WOW! I think you have it. That's quite a number to beat 1614!

I have a couple from my Dad to my Mom during WWII, and I thought those were old!

I am sure someone will have something older...??

I quick web search found a couple of letters from the mid 1500's for sale but they were from important people and hence the price made me scream like a little girl and run and hide behind the sofa!

Gavin

This is more a legal document than a letter...dating from 1822..i may have something older..but i'll have to dig around. Thought this was worth posting because of the fancy penmanship. I use to have great penmanship..but since the advent of the personal computers..it's gone to hedes.

Wow... any older, and we will be into slabs of STONE!

I wonder just when the quill was discovered to be a good writing instrument, and when actual writing ink was invented?

A merchant letter from Damaita to Alexandria written in 1419. This is the auction house's image. I will try to upload a more complete set of images when I can.



Probably paid too much, but it is a really nice letter. There were many other letters in the auction that were even nicer, but just too expensive for me.

Wow Agustanz, I can only dream of getting a letter from the 1600s. I have a dozen or so Great Britain pre-stamp letters with the oldest being around 1777. The language, spelling and writing of the time can be a challenge to read. My goal is to find a GB letter from the early 1700s.
Mike

1419!! Coming up 600 years old.. now THATS even better than what I was hoping to see! Really nice, I am looking forward to seeing more scans of it.

I would be interested in the price you paid... maybe you could let me know in a private message?? :)

regards
Gavin

"This is more a legal document than a letter...dating from 1822..i may have something older..but i'll have to dig around. Thought this was worth posting because of the fancy penmanship. I use to have great penmanship..but since the advent of the personal computers..it's gone to hedes."
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Very very nice writting, well worth posting and a lovely thing to have.
regards
Gavin

I've always been fascinated by the Corsini Correspondence. The Corsini's were Florentine merchants who lived in London 1568-1601. Christie's Robson Lowe sold hundreds of these letters in an auction in 1986 and individual copies show up on ebay with some regularity. I thought seriously a couple of weeks ago about buying a 1592 letter of Belgium showing a postal charge--so many of these early letters don't have postal markings, but it would have been almost $300 and I just couldn't bring myself to click the "Buy Now" button.

Hey, agustanz. I can't send an email (SCF won't let me). The folded letter was purchased in a 2011 auction. Let's say that I paid mid 3 figures in US dollars. That includes the buyer's premium.

Assuming anyone still cares, here's a scan of the 1419 Egyptian folded letter I mentioned. Hopefully, this works.

And no, I have no idea what it says.

Beautiful piece, it says "Meet me at the Pub after work and I'll call the Wife and tell her I'm working late and then we'll head off to the Topless Bar"......or was that the email I just sent my Wife...........

I have a few from the 1840's but none earlier than that. That Egyptian one would be neat to get translated though!