The Security Envelope

When you receive your daily stipend of mail, there are treasures in plain sight. Careful before you discard the envelopes. They may be precious.

For millennia, we have been enclosing our words in tamper resistant containers. From clay wrappers for  Mesopotamian tablets ¹ to wax seals² , we’ve always wanted to find ways to ensure our privacy in exchanging our sensitive information. In 1903, advances in the envelope manufacturing process made paper thinner. ³ This created the risk of someone being able to decipher your correspondence.

Some industries use mail to communicate sensitive information; they are more likely to use security envelopes. Oftentimes you will find security envelopes around financial or health correspondence.

On November 12, I found @local_youth ‘s⁴ tiktoks. Their collection of security envelope swatches is enviable and hearing the nicknames she gave them ignited one of my most dramatic special interests: complete taxonomies.

My scavenging in my scrap bin produced 80+ samples which turned into 3-5 samples on average each.

The categorization was the most time consuming. The time was spent looking for minor differences in print coverage, artifacts, errors, and umbrellas of categories.

I made specimen labels for each that is 2″ squares. That way I can attach them to the back of the 2.5″ squares that CK collects.

There are others that have developed a Taxonomy for Security Envelopes⁵ that I didn’t discover til I was already hip deep in my Latin Translation Dictionary. I love theirs and think mine can add to the larger conversation about shapes and pattern classification.

I created a zine of a Dichotomous Key for CK (Available PWYW on Ko-Fi) and sent them the collection of harvested samples except for one of each for my personal collection.

I collect them, you know.

Following curiosities:

• Who does the surface design for security envelopes?
• Is it possible to print security envelopes with my own design?
• How many more species are out there?
• What rate do I receive these?

1. https://www.instagram.com/p/C6gd8oLOqbN/ ↩︎
2. https://fionaariva.com/blogs/news/the-history-of-wax-seals-a-journey-through-time?srsltid=AfmBOor4I6H_9pcuXmhcUH9FKdwXMpOY8yK3q7Hkeofa9q8TD2PjELkC ↩︎
3. https://www.inconspicuous.info/p/a-close-look-at-security-envelopes ↩︎
4. https://www.tiktok.com/@local_youth?lang=en ↩︎
5. https://secret-archive.org/ ↩︎