I’m going to be sent a pile – three to four inches thick – of historical letters handwritten in pencil.

Any advice on the best way to read them?
eg would the pencil show up better in IR or UV light?
Would scanning or photographing followed by digital enhancement help?
What about side-lighting to help show up dents in the paper?

Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

mollwollfumble said:

I’m going to be sent a pile – three to four inches thick – of historical letters handwritten in pencil.

Any advice on the best way to read them?
eg would the pencil show up better in IR or UV light?
Would scanning or photographing followed by digital enhancement help?
What about side-lighting to help show up dents in the paper?

Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

Digitise first. Experiment with copies of the images not the originals.

Tamb said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m going to be sent a pile – three to four inches thick – of historical letters handwritten in pencil.

Any advice on the best way to read them?
eg would the pencil show up better in IR or UV light?
Would scanning or photographing followed by digital enhancement help?
What about side-lighting to help show up dents in the paper?

Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

Digitise first. Experiment with copies of the images not the originals.

+1

Use your eyes

Tamb said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m going to be sent a pile – three to four inches thick – of historical letters handwritten in pencil.

Any advice on the best way to read them?
eg would the pencil show up better in IR or UV light?
Would scanning or photographing followed by digital enhancement help?
What about side-lighting to help show up dents in the paper?

Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

Digitise first. Experiment with copies of the images not the originals.

Julie Gough scans them and then writes them up in a word type doc. Both windows open at one time.

Peak Warming Man said:

Tamb said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m going to be sent a pile – three to four inches thick – of historical letters handwritten in pencil.

Any advice on the best way to read them?
eg would the pencil show up better in IR or UV light?
Would scanning or photographing followed by digital enhancement help?
What about side-lighting to help show up dents in the paper?

Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

Digitise first. Experiment with copies of the images not the originals.

+1

>>>>>>>>>>>>Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

Donate them to a public library.

sarahs mum said:

Tamb said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m going to be sent a pile – three to four inches thick – of historical letters handwritten in pencil.

Any advice on the best way to read them?
eg would the pencil show up better in IR or UV light?
Would scanning or photographing followed by digital enhancement help?
What about side-lighting to help show up dents in the paper?

Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

Digitise first. Experiment with copies of the images not the originals.

Julie Gough scans them and then writes them up in a word type doc. Both windows open at one time.

I do the same but due to the diverse nature of the subject matter I use Excel not Word.

>How to read a letter?

You usually start where it says Dear Bubblecar and finish where it says Yours Hopefully, A Secret Admirer.

Bubblecar said:

>How to read a letter?

You usually start where it says Dear Bubblecar and finish where it says Yours Hopefully, A Secret Admirer.

I do much of the stuff in this:
https://thefamilycurator.com/ask-the-curator-how-to-preserve-and-archive-old-family-documents/

mollwollfumble said:

I’m going to be sent a pile – three to four inches thick – of historical letters handwritten in pencil.

Any advice on the best way to read them?
eg would the pencil show up better in IR or UV light?
Would scanning or photographing followed by digital enhancement help?
What about side-lighting to help show up dents in the paper?

Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

How old are they? A friend of mine is a conservator; he’s in Melbourne, but I can ask his advice.

On a related note, I was born and went to school in Ballarat. One of the schools had been converted from a colonial prison and still had a lot of the original buildings, some of which were unused, as were some of the rooms in the currently-used buildings. Being the sort of person I was, I climbed the outside of one of the buildings and got into a a room with a lot of the colonial-era stuff still in it, including a large array of notes and details of prisoners, written by the prison governor. These were around 150-200 years old, written in fountain pen, and provided a fascinating insight into the life of prisoners from then. I started photographing them, trying to preserve the contents, if not the pages, but don’t know what happened to them when I left the school. I fervently hope they were forwarded to the Australian Archives.

Step 1: Scan – highest res, full colour.

Step 2: Have document on one screen, text editor in another. Transpose.

Step 3: If it is difficult to read, Import into image editor and manipulate: Turn to B&W, Adjust yellow slider up to make yellowed paper white, adjust black and white points for contrast, and add a touch of sharpen.

Alternatively, if the letters may have local historical significance then your local university may be interested in doing all that stuff for you.

give them to someone who knows what they’re doing.

Dark Orange said:

Step 1: Scan – highest res, full colour.

Step 2: Have document on one screen, text editor in another. Transpose.

Step 3: If it is difficult to read, Import into image editor and manipulate: Turn to B&W, Adjust yellow slider up to make yellowed paper white, adjust black and white points for contrast, and add a touch of sharpen.

Alternatively, if the letters may have local historical significance then your local university may be interested in doing all that stuff for you.

Scan in TIFF. It makes for 75MB files but good quality.
Devise a coding system so you can find originals & copies. I use AAAA to ZZZZ. It gives 456,976 combinations.

mollwollfumble said:

I’m going to be sent a pile – three to four inches thick – of historical letters handwritten in pencil.

Any advice on the best way to read them?
eg would the pencil show up better in IR or UV light?
Would scanning or photographing followed by digital enhancement help?
What about side-lighting to help show up dents in the paper?

Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

Firstly, why are you reading them? To sort them into important and unimportant? Or to glean information out of them? Some other reason? I’d simply start with the ones that can be read easily and then move on to finding ways of reading any that are difficult. Are they all written in the same hand? If so, you should get better at reading the script as you go along.

If my mother wrote any of them, don’t expect any punctuation…one long sentence all the way through. I have no idea why she wrote like that.

wear latex ..

mainly on your hands, but if you want to wear a full body suit of latex that is none of my business.

Arts said:

wear latex ..

mainly on your hands, but if you want to wear a full body suit of latex that is none of my business.

Or mine.
And i’d go to some lengthsto ensure that it stays that way.

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m going to be sent a pile – three to four inches thick – of historical letters handwritten in pencil.

Any advice on the best way to read them?
eg would the pencil show up better in IR or UV light?
Would scanning or photographing followed by digital enhancement help?
What about side-lighting to help show up dents in the paper?

Any advice in preserving them? eg. stopping acid decay, stopping the pencil marks being rubbed out.

Firstly, why are you reading them? To sort them into important and unimportant? Or to glean information out of them? Some other reason? I’d simply start with the ones that can be read easily and then move on to finding ways of reading any that are difficult. Are they all written in the same hand? If so, you should get better at reading the script as you go along.

If my mother wrote any of them, don’t expect any punctuation…one long sentence all the way through. I have no idea why she wrote like that.

Probably she thought that if it’s called a full stop, then it should be a full stop, and since any other punctuation mark is obviously inferior to the full stop, we’ll leave those our as well.

Thanks for advice. The letters are 90 years old, and have some Australian historical value. The only one I’ve already seen is a ninety year old letter from an Australian aborigine. My role is to type the contents into text documents so they can be read on the web. I’m told that the pile of letters is about 10 cm thick, 75 letters in all.

Thanks for advice. Will scan full colour high-res and colour-enhance. Thanks for the tip about the yellow slider.
Will wear latex gloves.
And follow your other advice.

I’m giving a great sigh of thanks to the person sending them to me for photocopying them all in advance, and sending me both he original and photocopies. So I can get started by transcribing from the photocopies without risking damage to the originals. And then will scan and read the originals whenever the photocopy becomes hard to read.

Why the letters are in pencil I have no idea unless it was that, in the Australian bush 90 years ago, pencils were easier to write with than pens.

Will wear latex gloves.
—-

Most collections require handling with white cotton gloves. Lately some collections have gone back to clean hands. Hands without gloves tend to do less damage.

mollwollfumble said:

Thanks for advice. The letters are 90 years old, and have some Australian historical value. The only one I’ve already seen is a ninety year old letter from an Australian aborigine. My role is to type the contents into text documents so they can be read on the web. I’m told that the pile of letters is about 10 cm thick, 75 letters in all.

Thanks for advice. Will scan full colour high-res and colour-enhance. Thanks for the tip about the yellow slider.
Will wear latex gloves.
And follow your other advice.

I’m giving a great sigh of thanks to the person sending them to me for photocopying them all in advance, and sending me both he original and photocopies. So I can get started by transcribing from the photocopies without risking damage to the originals. And then will scan and read the originals whenever the photocopy becomes hard to read.

Why the letters are in pencil I have no idea unless it was that, in the Australian bush 90 years ago, pencils were easier to write with than pens.

Did ball type pens exist back then or were they quill and ink bottle type ones

Cymek said:

mollwollfumble said:

Thanks for advice. The letters are 90 years old, and have some Australian historical value. The only one I’ve already seen is a ninety year old letter from an Australian aborigine. My role is to type the contents into text documents so they can be read on the web. I’m told that the pile of letters is about 10 cm thick, 75 letters in all.

Thanks for advice. Will scan full colour high-res and colour-enhance. Thanks for the tip about the yellow slider.
Will wear latex gloves.
And follow your other advice.

I’m giving a great sigh of thanks to the person sending them to me for photocopying them all in advance, and sending me both he original and photocopies. So I can get started by transcribing from the photocopies without risking damage to the originals. And then will scan and read the originals whenever the photocopy becomes hard to read.

Why the letters are in pencil I have no idea unless it was that, in the Australian bush 90 years ago, pencils were easier to write with than pens.

Did ball type pens exist back then or were they quill and ink bottle type ones

No ball points. Nib, holder and ink.

Michael V said:

Cymek said:

mollwollfumble said:

Thanks for advice. The letters are 90 years old, and have some Australian historical value. The only one I’ve already seen is a ninety year old letter from an Australian aborigine. My role is to type the contents into text documents so they can be read on the web. I’m told that the pile of letters is about 10 cm thick, 75 letters in all.

Thanks for advice. Will scan full colour high-res and colour-enhance. Thanks for the tip about the yellow slider.
Will wear latex gloves.
And follow your other advice.

I’m giving a great sigh of thanks to the person sending them to me for photocopying them all in advance, and sending me both he original and photocopies. So I can get started by transcribing from the photocopies without risking damage to the originals. And then will scan and read the originals whenever the photocopy becomes hard to read.

Why the letters are in pencil I have no idea unless it was that, in the Australian bush 90 years ago, pencils were easier to write with than pens.

Did ball type pens exist back then or were they quill and ink bottle type ones

No ball points. Nib, holder and ink.

Yeah nib not quill

Michael V said:

Cymek said:

mollwollfumble said:

Thanks for advice. The letters are 90 years old, and have some Australian historical value. The only one I’ve already seen is a ninety year old letter from an Australian aborigine. My role is to type the contents into text documents so they can be read on the web. I’m told that the pile of letters is about 10 cm thick, 75 letters in all.

Thanks for advice. Will scan full colour high-res and colour-enhance. Thanks for the tip about the yellow slider.
Will wear latex gloves.
And follow your other advice.

I’m giving a great sigh of thanks to the person sending them to me for photocopying them all in advance, and sending me both he original and photocopies. So I can get started by transcribing from the photocopies without risking damage to the originals. And then will scan and read the originals whenever the photocopy becomes hard to read.

Why the letters are in pencil I have no idea unless it was that, in the Australian bush 90 years ago, pencils were easier to write with than pens.

Did ball type pens exist back then or were they quill and ink bottle type ones

No ball points. Nib, holder and ink.

Cartridge pen without the plastic insert?

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

Cymek said:

Did ball type pens exist back then or were they quill and ink bottle type ones

No ball points. Nib, holder and ink.

Cartridge pen without the plastic insert?

I imagine the risk of them breaking/leaking and lack of easy replacement compared to a pencil that can break in half and you have two pencils instead of one

Cymek said:

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

No ball points. Nib, holder and ink.

Cartridge pen without the plastic insert?

I imagine the risk of them breaking/leaking and lack of easy replacement compared to a pencil that can break in half and you have two pencils instead of one

fountain pen was what I meant.

The Romanian inventor Petrache Poenaru received a French patent on May 25, 1827, for the first fountain pen.

Cymek said:

Michael V said:

Cymek said:

Did ball type pens exist back then or were they quill and ink bottle type ones

No ball points. Nib, holder and ink.

Yeah nib not quill

see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pen

sarahs mum said:

Will wear latex gloves.
—-

Most collections require handling with white cotton gloves. Lately some collections have gone back to clean hands. Hands without gloves tend to do less damage.

Thanks, will comply.

Tamb said:

Bubblecar said:

>How to read a letter?

You usually start where it says Dear Bubblecar and finish where it says Yours Hopefully, A Secret Admirer.

I do much of the stuff in this:
https://thefamilycurator.com/ask-the-curator-how-to-preserve-and-archive-old-family-documents/

Looking up https://thefamilycurator.com/ask-the-curator-how-to-preserve-and-archive-old-family-documents/
The State Library gives very similar advice https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/research-and-collections/building-our-collections/caring-librarys-collections/storage-newspapers.

Following links from the first page to “Place each item in an acid-free, lignin-free folder or archival plastic enclosure. I like to use crystal clear polyester sleeves so I can view the items and share with family members. Archival folders and heavy archival plastic sleeves help support fragile documents.”

Expensive! Those stiff polyester sleeves they recommend cost $4 per page. More than $1000 in protection.

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

Cymek said:

Did ball type pens exist back then or were they quill and ink bottle type ones

No ball points. Nib, holder and ink.

Cartridge pen without the plastic insert?

Yes, there were fountain pens.

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

No ball points. Nib, holder and ink.

Cartridge pen without the plastic insert?

Yes, there were fountain pens.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_pen

sarahs mum said:

Will wear latex gloves.
—-

Most collections require handling with white cotton gloves. Lately some collections have gone back to clean hands. Hands without gloves tend to do less damage.

cotton gloves are kind of difficult to manipulate with, latex at least gives you sensation and skin closeness without all the oils of skin and skin flakes interfering.

Burn all but one thereby increasing its value.

or whatever everyone else said to do i guess