Unlocking History Number (UH#)

UH0166


Original

A Brienne Diamond format


Model and research notes

MIT Libraries, Unlocking History Research Group archive, MC0760, Box 21–24 .


Letterlocking Unique Video Number(s) (LUV #s) & Instructional video(s) URL

LUV166 https://youtu.be/RX9bxICepJ8

LUV256 https://youtu.be/6nt-JcI6QSM 


Instructional video info transcription

Forthcoming


Letterlocking category Number (LC #)

LC02Z        


Letterlocking format Number (LF #)

4SD


Security score

Zero


Assessment of Confidence in assigning LC#

Attested


Substrate

Paper


Dimensions

Opened (in mm):       H: 263mm x W: 199mm        

Letterpacket (in mm): H:   55mm x W:   57mm  


Manifestation

Refolded


Distinctive letterlocking style(s)

Brienne diamond 


Locking Mechanism

Tuck


Security enhancements

NA

 

Letterlocking category formula (shorthand)

LC2 

Fold + Tuck 

(F + T) 


Letterlocking manipulation sequence (shorthand)

Fold + fold + fold + fold + fold + fold + fold + fold + fold + fold + tuck + + tuck


Locking instructions

Bifolium fold. Keep folded. Fold short-edge to short-edge, from bottom edge to top edge. Keep folded. Flip over so the fixed long edge is at the top. Edge fold, long top edge down about 10mm. Keep folded. Flip over right to left. Fold short-edge to short-edge. Unfold. Double corner fold the top corners toward centerfold. Roll fold bottom long edge twice onto the triangular flaps created by the corner folds. Flip over right to left. Roll fold the long edges around the corners of the triangular shaped letterpacket on both sides two times. Diagonal fold bottom right triangle towards the small triangular fixed pocket. Tuck the triangular flap into the triangle pocket. Diagonal fold the left triangular flap towards the small triangular fixed pocket. Tuck the triangular flap into the triangle pocket. 


Images 

Forthcoming

Images: View: address side; reverse side

Images: Download: address side; reverse side


Foldable(s)

Forthcoming


Step-by-steps 

Forthcoming


Substrate map

Forthcoming


Virtual unfolding results

NA


Manipulations

Writing: NA

Postal: No postal marks. Inserted letter disassociated with its wrapper or letterwrapper.

Opening: Tears

Filing (Storage, Display): NA 

Repair: NA 


Damage

Tears


Features

Dirt on panels/ in crease

Radiating wrinkles

Wrinkles


Article(s)

2023. Daniel Starza Smith & Jana Dambrogio. Letterlocking: securing correspondence before envelopes in Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World. Lauren Shohet, subject editor. 


2021. Unlocking history through automated virtual unfolding of sealed documents imaged by X-ray microtomography 


2019. “Letters”, with Elizabethanne Boran & Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig with Rebekah Ahrendt, Nadine Akkerman, Jana Dambrogio, Daniel Starza Smith, & David van der Linden. in Reassembling the Republic of Letters in the Digital Age, ed. by Howard Hotson & Thomas Wallnig, (Göttingen: Göttingen University Press). 63–67. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2019-1146


Book 

Jana Dambrogio, Daniel Starza Smith, and the Unlocking History Research Group. Letterlocking, The Hidden History of the Letter. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2025.


Citation for the letter(s)

UH0166

Original 

Hendrik Tijnmens to his father Klaes Tijnmens, (14 December 1689), in the Brienne Collection, Sound and Vision The Hague, DB-2004


Model

MIT Libraries, Unlocking History Research Group archive, MC0760, Box 21.


Video

LUV166

Jana Dambrogio, Daniel Starza Smith, the Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered team, and the Unlocking History Research Group, “A POW letter: A son’s diamond-locked letter to his father, France (1689).” Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0166/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 166. Filmed: December 2017. Duration: 3:41. Posted: February 2020. URL: https://youtu.be/RX9bxICepJ8. Accessed: March 4, 2025.


LUV256 

Amanda Ghassei. "XMT scan animation of a diamond-shaped letter from the Brienne Collection (DB-2004)," Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0166/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 0256. Creation date: October 2020. Duration: 0:06. Posted: March 2021. URL: https://youtu.be/6nt-JcI6QSM. Accessed: March 4, 2025.