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Re: Onion skin(?) paper



> In one of my collections I have a letter from 1864 written on both sides
> of an onion skin or other thin, translucent paper. The letter is
> impossible to read because the handwriting from the reverse side is
> visible on the front and the lines of the handwriting from each side
> line up perfectly. We have tried photocopying and scanning to no
> avail. We have figured out some of the words through the use of
> magnification. Oh, and did I mention that at some point in this
> document's history someone patched a hole in the paper with scotch tape
> (and failed to line up the words)?! Any suggestions on how we can
> decipher this document?

Julie, this sounds very similar to a "criss-cross" style I've encountered
from roughly the same period, and though not the same as the letterpress
product, Kevin's suggestion of simply taking it carefully word by word is how
I tackled criss-cross.  It can be done, but alot of patience is required.  It
helps if the handwriting has a natural "slant" since that makes it easier to
detect which figures are part of the portion you are tackling.

Letter press copies are generally "mirror" image and I know folks who swear
by set up mirrors when transcribing such material, but having been a
letterpress printer and typesetter (yeachh!  did I say that?  Printing on a
letterpress is a different process from the letterpress copybook process,
can't figure out how to use the two in the same paragraph with sounding as if
I'm confusing the two...), printing that is backwards and upside down doesn't
faze me.

A possible solution comes to mind, but up front I should tell you I haven't
tried it with bleed-throughs as you've described--try scanning it (in color
preferably) if the document can hold up to scanning.  Then take the image and
play around with color separation and contrasts.  You may find that the ink
deposited on the front of the sheet has a different contrast from the ink on
the verso (oops!  there's goes the terminology again!) and by enhancing it to
the max you can filter the contrasts.

Just a thought.

I'd be interested in hearing how you solve the dilemma!

Holly Hodges
in Virginia

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