Front of an envelope mailed in the U. S. in 1906 contains postage stamp and address.

Back of an envelope mailed in the U. S. in 1906 contains an additional postmark.

An envelope is a packaging product, usually made of flat, planar material such as paper or cardboard, and designed to contain a flat object, which in a postal-service context is usually a letter, card or bills. Packaging is the science art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution storage sale and use Paper is thin material mainly used for writing upon printing upon or packaging A letter is a Written Message from one person to another Letters especially a regular exchange between two persons (sometimes called Pen pals The traditional type is made from a sheet of paper cut to one of three shapes: the rhombus (also referred to as a lozenge or diamond), the short-arm cross, and the kite. In Geometry, a rhombus (from Ancient Greek ῥόμβος - rrhombos “rhombus spinning top” (plural rhombi or rhombuses These designs ensure that in the course of envelope manufacture when the sides of the sheet are folded about a delineated central rectangular area, a rectangular-faced, usually oblong, enclosure is formed with an arrangement of four flaps on the reverse side, which, by virtue of the shapes of sheet traditionally used, is inevitably symmetrical. Envelope production, whether by hand or by machine involves the manufacture of Envelopes to carry Mail. Symmetry generally conveys two primary meanings The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically-pleasing proportionality and balance such that it reflects beauty or

In 1876 William Irwin Martin published the Stationer's Handbook. He worked for the Samuel Raynor & Company in New York. He created the first commercial sizes of envelopes and simply numbered them from 0 through 12. It was mostly for social and business stationery purposes in those days. That's how the No. 10 envelope got its name.

Overview

Envelope with advertising from 1905 used in the U. S.

Patent drawing of Americus Callahan's windowed envelope. Americus F Callahan, of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, received the first patent for a windowed Envelope on 10

When the folding sequence is such that the last flap to be closed is on a short side it is referred to in commercial envelope manufacture as a '"pocket"' - a format frequently employed in the packaging of small quantities of seeds. Envelope production, whether by hand or by machine involves the manufacture of Envelopes to carry Mail. Packaging is the science art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution storage sale and use 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 sending mail (letters) through a prepaid-postage postal system. Mail, or post, is a method for transmitting information and tangible objects wherein written Documents typically enclosed in Envelopes and also A letter is a Written Message from one person to another Letters especially a regular exchange between two persons (sometimes called Pen pals Mail, or post, is a method for transmitting information and tangible objects wherein written Documents typically enclosed in Envelopes and also

Window envelopes have a hole cut in the front side that allows the paper within to be seen. They are generally arranged so that the sending address printed on the letter is visible, saving the sender from having to duplicate 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 by Americus F. Callahan in 1901 and patented the following year. Americus F Callahan, of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, received the first patent for a windowed Envelope on 10 In some cases, shortages of materials or the need to economize resulted in envelopes that had no film covering the window. One innovative process, invented in Europe about 1905, involved using hot oil to saturate the area of the envelope where the address would appear. The treated area became sufficiently translucent for the address to be readable. A typical use for window envelopes is courtesy reply mail. Courtesy reply mail or CRM is a type of mail in which a business sends pre-printed self-addressed Envelopes or Postcards to customers who then affix

An aerogram is related to a lettersheet, both being designed to have writing on the inside to minimize the weight. An Aerogram or Air Letter, also called an aérogramme is a thin lightweight piece of foldable and gummed paper for writing a letter for transit via Airmail, in which In philatelic terminology a Letter sheet, often written lettersheet is nowadays an item of Postal stationery issued by a postal authority Any handmade envelope is effectively a lettersheet 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.

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 the Penny Post component of the British postal reforms of 1840 was a lozenge-shaped lettersheet known as a Mulready. The Uniform Penny Post was a component of the comprehensive reform of the Royal Mail, the UK 's official postal service that took place in the 19th-century Mulready stationery describes the Postal stationery lettersheets and pre-gummed Envelopes that were introduced as part of the British Post Office But if desired, a separate letter could be enclosed with postage remaining one penny, provided the combined weight did not exceed half an ounce (about 13 grams). This was a legacy of the previous system of calculating postage, which partly depended on the number of sheets of paper used.

During the U. S. Civil War those in the CSA occasionally used envelopes made from wallpaper, due to financial hardship.

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, or freepost (business reply mail). Metered reply mail or MRM is a type of mail in which a business sends pre-printed self-addressed envelopes or postcards to customers with postage prepaid on the envelopes Freepost is a postal service provided by various Postal administrations whereby a person sends Mail without affixing Postage, and the recipient pays the 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. The direct mail industry makes extensive use of return envelopes as a response mechanism. Direct mail, also known as junk mail, advertising mail or admail, is the delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal Mail.

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 the U.K. patented the method of tessellating (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. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located A tessellation or tiling of the plane is a collection of Plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps In 1845 Edwin Hill (U.K.) and Warren de la Rue obtained a patent for a steam-driven machine that not only cut out the envelope shapes but creased and folded them as well. Year 1845 ( MDCCCXLV) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Warren de la Rue ( 18 January 1815 – 19 April 1889) was a British Astronomer and Chemist, most famous for his A patent is a set of Exclusive rights granted by a State to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an Uses A Steam engine uses the expansion of steam in order to drive a Piston or Turbine to perform Mechanical work. (Mechanised gumming 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 the direct mail industry has long taken advantage of -- and more recently the Mail Art movement. Direct mail, also known as junk mail, advertising mail or admail, is the delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal Mail. Mail art is Art which uses the Postal system as a medium The term mail art can refer to an individual message the medium through which it is sent or Custom printed envelopes has also become an increasingly popular marketing method for small business.

Most of the over 400 billion envelopes of all sizes made worldwide are machine-made. Some will be made by hand. These include some of the eastern poorer countries.

Post office requirements

Air mail envelope

A Chinese-style envelope used in Taiwan and printed for official use by the Legislative Yuan. Airmail (or air mail) is Mail that is transported by Aircraft. Taiwan ( Taiwanese: Tâi-oân/Tāi-oân (historically 大灣/台員/大員/台圓/大圓/台窩灣 is an Island in East Asia. The Legislative Yuan ( is the Legislative body of the Republic of China (ROC which administers Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and The red box in the center is for the name of the recipient, written vertically in Chinese characters. The address is also written vertically to the right of the red box. The postal code is written in the boxes in the lower left-hand corner.

Post offices prefer envelopes to be rectangular rather than square, as this reduces the amount of sorting that is needed to line up all the envelopes with the addresses reading the same way.

In some countries using postcodes, common envelopes are preprinted with lines and boxes that help write those postcodes in a consistent way in a consistent position. A postal code (known in various countries as a post code, postcode, or ZIP code) is a series of letters and/or digits appended to a

Things other than envelopes have been also used, such as Ziploc bags. [1]

In Australia, post office-preferred envelopes have four boxes printed in orange ink at the bottom right-hand corner where handwritten postcodes are meant to be written. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. A postal code (known in various countries as a post code, postcode, or ZIP code) is a series of letters and/or digits appended to a Character recognition software is used to read the postcode number.

Envelopes in the Soviet Union were printed with something like the common 7 segment LCD, to assist the user to write the 6-character postcode directly in machine-readable format. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991

External links

• International standard paper sizes: ISO 216 details and rationale
• ISO 216 at iso.org
• Envelopes made out of tin / metal
• Envelope Sizes

Phrases

• Back-of-the-envelope calculation

See also

• Envelope size
• Secrecy of correspondence
• Return address
• Aerogram
• Packaging