Padded Envelopes

An envelope is a packaging product, usually madeits name.
of flat, planar material such as paper orAccording to international postal conventions, a
cardboard, and designed to contain a flat object,letter envelope must measure at least 90 ×
which in a postal-service context is usually a140 mm. The length of postcards and aerograms
letter, card or bills. The traditional type is mademust be at least the width times the square root
from a sheet of paper cut to one of threeof 2. These requirements help sorting letters by
shapes: the rhombus (also referred to as amaking it easier to line up all the envelopes with
lozenge or diamond), the short-arm cross, and thethe addresses reading the same way.
kite. These designs ensure that in the course ofThe same regulations also reserve certain regions
envelope manufacture when the sides of theon the envelope for the address, the postage, as
sheet are folded about a delineated centralwell as markings that can be added by sorting
rectangular area, a rectangular-faced, usuallymachines.
oblong, enclosure is formed with an arrangementIn some countries using postcodes, common
of four flaps on the reverse side, which, by virtueenvelopes are preprinted with lines and boxes that
of the shapes of sheet traditionally used, ishelp write those postcodes in a consistent way in
inevitably symmetrical.a consistent position.
In 1876 William Irwin Martin published thePadded envelopes where introduced to give extra
Stationer's Handbook. He worked for the Samuelprotection to more dilicate items sent through the
Raynor & Company in New York. He createdpost. Jiffy padded envelopes are made from a
the first commercial sizes of envelopes and simplystrong high quality punture and tear resistant
numbered them from 0 through 12. It was mostlykraft paper and filled with re-cycled paper fibres
for social and business stationery purposes infor maximum cushioning.
those days. That's how the No. 10 envelope got