Front of an envelope mailed in the U.S. in 1906, with apostage stamp and addressBack of the above envelope, showing an additional receivingpost officepostmark
Anenvelope is a commonpackaging item, usually made of thin, flat material. It is designed to contain a flat object, such as aletter orcard.
Traditional envelopes are made from sheets of paper cut to one of three shapes: arhombus, a short-arm cross or akite. These shapes allow the envelope structure to be made by folding the sheet sides around a central rectangular area. In this manner, a rectangle-faced enclosure is formed with an arrangement of four flaps on the reverse side.
A folding sequence such that the last flap closed is on a short side is referred to in commercial envelopemanufacture as apocket – a format frequently employed in thepackaging of small quantities of seeds. Although in principle the flaps can be held in place by securing the topmost flap at a single point (for example with a wax seal), generally they are pasted or gummed together at the overlaps. They are most commonly used for enclosing and sendingmail (letters) through a prepaid-postagepostal system.
Window envelopes have a hole cut in the front side that allows the paper within to be seen.[1] They are generally arranged so that the receiving address printed on the letter is visible, saving duplication of the address on the envelope itself. The window is normally covered with a transparent or translucent film to protect the letter inside, as was first designed byAmericus F. Callahan in 1901 and patented the following year.[2] In some cases, shortages of materials or the need to economize resulted in envelopes that had no film covering the window.[citation needed] One innovative process, invented in Europe about 1905, involved using hot oil to saturate the area of the envelope where the address would appear.[citation needed] The treated area became sufficiently translucent for the address to be readable. As of 2009[update] there is no international standard for window envelopes, but some countries, includingGermany and theUnited Kingdom, have national standards.[3]
Anaerogram is related to aletter sheet, both being designed to have writing on the inside to minimize the weight. Any handmade envelope is effectively a letter sheet because prior to the folding stage it offers the opportunity for writing a message on that area of the sheet that after folding becomes the inside of the face of the envelope. For document security, the letter sheet can be sealed with wax. Another secure form of letter sheet is alocked letter, that is formed by cutting and folding the sheet in an elaborate way that prevents the letter from being opened without creating obvious damage to the letter/envelope.
A Japanese funeral envelope used for offering condolence money. The white and black cords represent death. Similar-looking envelopes with red and silver cords are used for weddings.
The "envelope" used to launch thePenny Post component of theBritish postal reforms of 1840 bySir Rowland Hill and the invention of thepostage stamp, was a lozenge-shaped lettersheet known as aMulready.[4] If desired, a separate letter could be enclosed with postage remaining at one penny provided the combined weight did not exceed half an ounce (14 grams). This was a legacy of the previous system of calculating postage, which partly depended on the number of sheets of paper used.
A "return envelope" is a pre-addressed, smaller envelope included as the contents of a larger envelope and can be used for courtesy reply mail,metered reply mail, orfreepost (business reply mail). Some envelopes are designed to be reused as the return envelope, saving the expense of including a return envelope in the contents of the original envelope. Thedirect mail industry makes extensive use of return envelopes as a response mechanism.
Up until 1840, all envelopes were handmade, each being individually cut to the appropriate shape out of an individual rectangular sheet. In that year George Wilson in theUnited Kingdom patented the method oftessellating (tiling) a number of envelope patterns across and down a large sheet, thereby reducing the overall amount of waste produced per envelope when they were cut out. In 1845Edwin Hill andWarren de la Rue obtained apatent for asteam-driven machine that not only cut out the envelope shapes but creased and folded them as well. (Mechanisedgumming had yet to be devised.) The convenience of the sheets ready cut to shape popularized the use of machine-made envelopes, and the economic significance of the factories that had produced handmade envelopes gradually diminished.
As envelopes are made of paper, they are intrinsically amenable to embellishment with additional graphics and text over and above the necessary postal markings. This is a feature that thedirect mail industry has long taken advantage of—and more recently theMail Art movement. Custom printed envelopes has also become an increasingly popular marketing method forsmall business.
Most of the over 400 billion envelopes of all sizes made worldwide are machine-made.
International standardISO 269 (withdrawn in 2009 without replacement[5]) defined several standard envelope sizes, which are designed for use withISO 216 standardpaper sizes:
There are dozens of sizes of envelopes available in the United States.
The designations such as "A2" do not correspond to ISO paper sizes. Sometimes, North American paper jobbers and printers will insert a hyphen to distinguish from ISO sizes, thus: A-2.
No. 9; letter paper folded into thirds (3+2⁄3 × 8+1⁄2)
No. 11
4+1⁄2 × 10+3⁄8
114 × 264
2.31
No. 10
No. 12
4+3⁄4 × 11
121 × 279
2.32
No. 11
No. 14
5 × 11+1⁄2
127 × 292
2.3
No. 12
The No. 10 envelope is the standard business envelope size in the United States.[6]PWG 5101.1[7] also lists the following even inch sizes for envelopes:6 × 9,7 × 9,9 × 11,9 × 12,10 × 13,10 × 14 and10 × 15.
Envelopes accepted by the U.S. Postal Service for mailing at the price of a letter must be:
Rectangular
At least3+1⁄2 inches high × 5 inches long × 0.007 inch thick.
No more than6+1⁄8 inches high ×11+1⁄2 inches long ×1⁄4 inch thick.[8]
Letters that have a length-to-height aspect ratio of less than 1.3 or more than 2.5 are classified as "non-machinable" by the USPS and may cost more to mail.[9]
Japanese traditional rectangular (角形,kakugata, K) and long (長形,nagagata, N) envelopes open on the short side, while Western-style (洋形,yōgata, Y) envelopes open on the long side.The Japanese standard JIS S 5502[10] was first published in 1964. Some traditional sizes were not kept and some sizes have been removed until its latest edition in 2014, leaving behind gaps in the numeric sequence of designations.
The first known envelope was nothing like the paper envelope of today. It can be dated back to around 3500 to 3200 BC in the ancient Middle East. Hollow clay spheres were molded around financial tokens and used in private transactions. The two people who discovered these first envelopes wereJacques de Morgan, in 1901, andRoland de Mecquenem, in 1907.[citation needed]
Paper envelopes were developed in China, where paper was invented by the 2nd century BC.[11] Paper envelopes, known aschih poh, were used to store gifts of money. In theSouthern Song dynasty, the Chinese imperial court used paper envelopes to distribute monetary gifts to government officials.[12]
In Western history, from the time flexible writing material became more readily available in the 13th century[a] until the mid-19th century, correspondence was typically secured by a process of folding and sealing the letter itself,[13] sometimes including elaborateletterlocking techniques to indicate tampering or prove authenticity.[14][15] Some of these letter techniques, which could involve stitching or wax seals, were also employed to secure hand-made envelopes.
Reverse of envelope (possibly machine-cut) stamped 1841Front of an envelope mailed in 1841. Stamp from 1841 on backside. Possibly machine cut.
Prior to 1840, all envelopes were handmade, including those for commercial use. In 1840 George Wilson of London was granted a patent for an envelope-cutting machine (patent: "an improved paper-cutting machine");[16] these machine-cut envelopes still needed to be folded by hand.[17][18] There is a picture of the front and backside of an envelope stamped in 1841 here on this page. It seems to be machine cut. In 1845,Edwin Hill andWarren De La Rue were granted a British patent for the first envelope-folding machine.[19]
The "envelopes" produced by the Hill/De La Rue machine were not like those used today. They were flat diamond, lozenge (orrhombus)-shaped sheets or "blanks" that had been precut to shape before being fed to the machine for creasing and made ready for folding to form a rectangular enclosure. The edges of the overlapping flaps treated with a paste oradhesive and the method of securing the envelope or wrapper was a user choice. The symmetrical flap arrangement meant that it could be held together with a single wax seal at the apex of the topmost flap. (That the flaps of an envelope can be held together by applying a seal at a single point is a classic design feature of an envelope.)[citation needed]
Nearly 50 years passed before a commercially successful machine for producing pre-gummed envelopes, like those in use today, appeared.[citation needed]
The origin of the use of the diamond shape for envelopes is debated.[by whom?] However, as an alternative to simply wrapping a sheet of paper around a folded letter or an invitation and sealing the edges, it is a tidy and ostensibly paper-efficient way of producing a rectangular-faced envelope. Where the claim to be paper-efficient fails is a consequence of paper manufacturers normally making paper available in rectangular sheets, because the largest size of envelope that can be realised by cutting out a diamond or any other shape which yields an envelope with symmetrical flaps is smaller than the largest that can be made from that sheet simply by folding.
Envelope with advertising from 1905 used in the U.S.
The folded diamond-shaped sheet (or "blank") was in use at the beginning of the 19th century as a novelty wrapper for invitations and letters among the proportion of the population that had the time to sit and cut them out and were affluent enough not to bother about the waste offcuts.[citation needed] Their use first became widespread in the UK when the British government took monopoly control of postal services and taskedRowland Hill with its introduction. The new service was launched in May 1840 with a postage-paid machine-printed illustrated (or pictorial) version of the wrapper and the much-celebrated first adhesive postage stamp, thePenny Black, for the production of which theJacob Perkins printing process was used to deter counterfeiting and forgery. The wrappers were printed and sold as a sheet of 12, with cutting the purchaser's task. Known asMulready stationery, because the illustration was created by the respected artistWilliam Mulready, the envelopes were withdrawn when the illustration was ridiculed and lampooned. Nevertheless, the public apparently saw the convenience of the wrappers being available ready-shaped, and it must have been obvious that with the stamp available totally plain versions of the wrapper could be produced and postage prepaid by purchasing a stamp and affixing it to the wrapper once folded and secured. In this way although the postage-prepaid printed pictorial version died ignominiously, the diamond-shaped wrapper acquired de facto official status and became readily available to the public notwithstanding the time taken to cut them out and the waste generated. With the issuing of the stamps and the operation and control of the service (which is a communications medium) in government hands the British model spread around the world and the diamond-shaped wrapper went with it.
Hill also installed his brother Edwin as The Controller of Stamps, and it was he with his partner Warren De La Rue who patented the machine for mass-producing the diamond-shaped sheets for conversion to envelopes in 1845. Today, envelope-making machine manufacture is a long- and well-established international industry, and blanks are produced with a short-arm-cross shape and a kite shape as well as diamond shape. (The short-arm-cross style is mostly encountered in "pocket" envelopes i.e. envelopes with the closing flap on a short side. The more common style, with the closing flap on a long side, are sometimes referred to as "standard" or "wallet" style for purposes of differentiation.)
The most famous paper-making machine was theFourdrinier machine. The process involves taking processed pulp stock and converting it to a continuous web which is gathered as a reel. Subsequently, the reel is guillotined edge to edge to create a large number of properly rectangular sheets because ever since the invention ofGutenberg's press paper has been closely associated with printing.
To this day, all other mechanical printing and duplicating equipments devised in the meantime, including thetypewriter (which was used up to the 1990s for addressing envelopes), have been primarily designed to process rectangular sheets. Hence the large sheets are in turn guillotined down to the sizes of rectangular sheet commonly used in the commercialprinting industry, and nowadays to the sizes commonly used as feed-stock in office-grade computer printers, copiers and duplicators (mainly ISO, A4 and US Letter).
Using any mechanical printing equipment to print on envelopes, which although rectangular, are in fact folded sheets with differing thicknesses across their surfaces, calls for skill and attention on the part of the operator. In commercial printing the task of printing on machine-made envelopes is referred to as "overprinting" and is usually confined to the front of the envelope. If printing is required on all four flaps as well as the front, the process is referred to as "printing on the flat". Eye-catchingillustrated envelopes orpictorial envelopes, the origins of which as an artistic genre can be attributed to the Mulready stationery – and which was printed in this way – are used extensively fordirect mail. In this respect, direct mail envelopes have a shared history withpropaganda envelopes (or "covers") as they are called by philatelists.[citation needed]
In 1998, theU.S. Postal Service became the first postal authority to approve a system of printing digital stamps.[citation needed] With this innovative alternative to an adhesive-backedpostage stamp, businesses could more easily produce envelopes in-house, address them, and customize them with advertising information on the face.
The fortunes of the commercial envelope manufacturing industry and the postal service go hand in hand, and both link to the printing industry and the mechanized envelope processing industry producing equipment such as franking and addressing machines. Technological developments affecting one ricochet through the others: addressing machines print addresses, postage stamps are a print product, franking machines imprint a frank on an envelope. If fewer envelopes are required; fewer stamps are required; fewer franking machines are required and fewer addressing machines are required.[citation needed] For example, the advent of information-based indicia (IBI) (commonly referred to as digitally-encoded electronic stamps or digital indicia) by the US Postal Service in 1998 caused widespread consternation in the franking machine industry, as their machines were rendered obsolete, and resulted in a flurry of lawsuits involving Pitney Bowes among others. The advent ofe-mail in the late 1990s appeared to offer a substantial threat to the postal service. By 2008 letter-post service operators were reporting significantly smaller volumes of letter-post, specifically stamped envelopes, which they attributed mainly to e-mail. Although a corresponding reduction in the volume of envelopes required would have been expected, no such decrease was reported as widely as the reduction in letter-post volumes.
Security envelopes have specialtamper-resistant andtamper-evident features. They are used for high value products and documents as well as for evidence for legal proceedings.
Some security envelopes have a patterned tint printed on the inside, which makes it difficult to read the contents. Various patterns exist.[20]
Some envelopes are available for full-size documents or for other items. Some carriers have large mailing envelopes for their express services. Other similar envelopes are available at stationery supply locations.
Shipping envelopes can have padding to provide stiffness and some degree ofcushioning. The padding can be groundnewsprint, plastic foam sheets, or bubble packing.
Various U.S. Federal Government offices use Standard Form (SF) 65 Government Messenger Envelopes for inter-office mail delivery. These envelopes are typically light brown in color and un-sealed with string-tied closure method and an array of holes throughout both sides such that it is somewhat visible what the envelope contains. Other colloquial names for this envelope include "Holey Joe" and "Shotgun" envelope due to the holey nature of the envelope. Address method is unique in that these envelopes are re-usable and the previous address is crossed out thoroughly and the new addressee (name, building, room, and mailstop) is written in the next available box. Although still in use, SF-65 is no longer listed on theUnited States Office of Personnel Management website list of standard forms.[21]
^"History of Envelopes". BE. Retrieved27 December 2014.Window envelopes have a small plastic pane that fits an address printed onto the letter inside. Windowed envelopes soon became the standard for business envelopes, as they reduce the time and cost required to send mail while still ensuring it gets delivered to its intended destination.
^Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin (1985). "Paper and Printing". Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Chemistry and Chemical Technology. 5 part 1. Cambridge University Press: 38.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
^The Repertory of Patent Inventions, and other Discoveries & Improvements in Arts, Manufactures and Agriculture; being a continuation, on an enlarged plan of the Repertory of Arts & Manufactures. New Series. - VOL. XIII, January–June, 1840. London: Published by the Proprietor, J. S. Hodson. 112, Flett Street. (p. 107) Patent of January 21, 1840 (This is page 107 under the heading "List of New Patents"Kategorier
^The Royal Commission (1851).Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, 1851. Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue. London: William Clowes and Sons (s. 542-543)
^Practical Mechanic's Journal and Patent Office (1850). The Practical Mechanics Journal, Volume II - April 1849 - March 1850. Glasgow, London and New York (p.169-170)
^"The Heroic Age". Making the Modern World. Retrieved6 November 2012.
^SeeSecurity Patterns by Joseph King for a selection of security patterns from around the world
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