Envelopes are the outer cover
where one can write or give information about receiver and sender. Generally
envelopes are flat in size and used to send flat things like cards, letters and
photographs. Apart from flat ones there is few more kind of envelopes available
for commercial purpose to carry things like egg, bread, vegetables and many
more.
There was a time when paper
envelopes and cloth bags were used to carry things, but after plastic
revolution taking place throughout the world, paper and cloth bags were replaced
by plastics. Lately many countries have noticed the bad effect of plastic bags and
in order to overcome this issue they have started banning them. Right now there
are many countries where plastic bags are banned and people use cloth bags and
paper envelopes.
The very first envelope was
discovered around 3500 to 3200 BC. The very first envelope was made up of clay,
this was discovered first in 1901 by Jacques de Morgan and then by Roland de
Mecquenem in 1902. Paper
envelope was developed in China, where earlier paper
was invented in 2
nd Century BC. In China paper envelopes are known
as “Chih Poh” and generally used for gifts in form of money.
After few years when paper was
available everywhere, handmade envelopes were in great use. In 1845 Edwin Hill and
Warren De La Rue invented first paper envelope manufacturing machine. This
machine was not so accurate and its surprising that first well served
commercial envelope manufacturing machine was invented after 50years. Nowadays handmade
envelopes are replaced by machine envelopes. Handmade ones are still in
existence in many countries but on a very small basis.
As per the use there are many
formats of envelope, below are some globally accepted envelope formats
Apart from above formats many countries
have their own formats depending over content format they are following. Envelopes are now not limited to
papers only, there are some more hi-tech types of envelopes available like
plastic coated envelopes.
