Amazing lost art of letter-writing

The article below mentions writing with steel pens. I wrote that way for most of my primary schooling. The trick was to use bought ink instead of school ink. School ink was a dull blue but "Quink" ink was a bright blue and flowed better. Rich kids had "Quink" ink. I never did

When relatives die, the possessions they leave behind are often a source of intrigue and mystery. So it proved for Michael Dorahy and his younger sister Colleen.

Buried among a collection of vintage schoolbooks, he recently discovered a neatly folded criss-crossed letter dated 1879.

A criss-crossed letter, also known as cross-hatching or cross-writing, contains two or more streams of writing, one written over the other at right angles.

"It was in Mum's stuff, some of which was sent to me by a sister and during COVID I finally had time to go through it all and research what criss-crossed letters were," Michael, who lives in Melbourne, said.

The manuscript is hard to read as lines of correspondence cross each other on the page.

He believes the manuscript predates fountain pens and a source from the National Library of Australia agrees, identifying features unique to the genre, including writing tools.

"Steel nib pens with handles" were advertised in Australia as early as 1831, the source said, so it is likely that in 1879 the author would be using a metal nib pen.

An example of this can be viewed at Museums Victoria, along with a history of the pens.

"According to a 2016 article from the Rosenbach Museum and Library, the reason for cross-writing was to save paper or postage, but it also may have become a habit, even when not strictly necessary," the NLA reported.

"It was a system used worldwide, and definitely used in Australia in 1839, see Criss-Cross History Hidden in a Letter, which notes that paper was scarce."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-22/criss-crossed-letter-mystery/103362666

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