The next time you post something to someone else using the postal system, no matter where in the world you may be, consider how important that envelope is to the overall success of your message. Do not ever underestimate the benefit of using a custom envelope printing.
Envelopes are by no means a new, or even recent, development. Way back in the sixteenth century, messages transported between people of influence were mailed, as officially stated, "under cover of envelope." The message would then be enclosed in a piece of paper, and that was folded and sealed. This was a sort of custom envelope printing. Each individual sender took care of creating his own "enveloping" when he cut the paper to properly fit the size of the message. There are unfortunately few remaining specimens of early custom envelope printing that have survived through the years. Those that have lived on clearly show that they were individually hand-made, having no uniform cut or pattern.
It is unlikely that we will ever know who first developed the absolutely brilliant concept of cutting paper from a standard pattern to create what was literally a mass custom envelope printing. Whoever did so was literally the first to use a custom envelope printing, designing envelopes to directly fill the growing postal needs of the evolving world. It is more than likely that this intelligent individual was simply a stationer who regularly sold letter paper. One day he suddenly realized that there was something missing from the process. He saw a need to be filled and as an entrepreneur, that certain someone figured out how to fill that need. This would have been the start of the first custom envelope printing. Sadly, this brilliant entrepreneur has no dedication nor has he received any specific recognition to indicate his achievement. Still, we do know it happened, and we can all be thankful for that. Ever since, custom envelope printing has come a long way.
All this goes to show us how important it was even then, and still is now, to ensure that the person on the other end of the mailing knows ahead of time who it is that sent that important message to them. We all seem to think that coming up with great ideas is, well, a new idea. Not so.
Way back in the 1600s, people realized how necessary some sort of “enveloping” was to the successful exchange of personal messages. What was new was the realization of how important the actual custom envelope printing would be to the history of successful mail operation. Another brilliant entrepreneur got permission from King Louis XIV to put together a postal system in Paris. He set up boxes on street corners and used handbills to publicly announce that he would deliver the letters which were placed in them . . . provided those letters were enclosed in envelopes which he had placed for sale at certain stores.
This individual had figured out yet another way to create a custom envelope printing, and to profit from it. Early forms of commerce at work. These particular envelopes were made more like wrappers, and they contained a printed receipt for postage which was already paid. They were, figuratively-speaking, quite similar to a general government custom envelope printing that came into vogue nearly 200 years later.
Unfortunately, this gentleman’s overall scheme ultimately failed. It was sabotaged and intentionally ruined when its detractors, undoubtedly jealous of such a smart idea and concerned over its potential profitability—money not in their pockets but in someone else’s—dumped refuse and live mice into those street corner post boxes, rendering them literally useless. People of course then refused to post their mail in what had become nothing more than trash bins.
The modern “gummed-flap” envelope didn’t come on the scene until 1851. Prior to that, messages were traditionally folded over and sealed with wax shaped by a signet ring. Using this method, the message’s recipient could know if their mail had been read en route . . . by noting whether or not the seal had been broken. In England in the 1600s, concurrent with the intelligent idea of street corner post boxes in France, one more entrepreneur turned an otherwise irregular government-run postal service into a finely-tuned machine, utilizing fixed charges, regular routes, and having messages sent each time in a custom envelope printing.
From this point until the mid 1800s, most average folks could not afford to partake in the evolving postal system. It was too expensive for them. The result being that fewer and fewer people sent or received mail, and the encompassing revenue which had earlier started to visibly grow, began a decline. This all changed in 1836 when yet another British entrepreneur pioneered the idea of stamps. This permitted a cheaper alternative to the original pre-paid wrapper which encased the letter—basically that earlier form of custom envelope printing.
Yet what they used then was still no way near the same sort of envelope as what we have today. As mentioned, there was yet no custom envelope printing that was gummed, and envelopes were still basically wrapped around the letter and sealed with wax. Ornate-looking, the custom envelope printing of that time had finally achieved the desired result—a relatively affordable postage system for all, both the wealthy and the working folks. It was decreed that all inland letters would cost the same no matter the distance. For a penny, almost anyone could afford to send missives to friends and family. Within ten years, the number of messages sent using a custom envelope printing and the revised postal system had increased by a factor of five.
In 1851, once again it was an entrepreneur who developed a gummed envelope, something that more closely resembles today’s custom envelope printing. Machine made paper had become nearly standard and increasingly inexpensive, and the always-advancing rail system could deliver mail faster than ever before. It wasn’t long point before a custom envelope printing much like we have now had become part of everyday life.
Think about all this the next time you mail an important message . . . consider the long and important history behind that custom envelope printing that made it possible for you to get your word out, far and wide.