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 I
wanted to print all these documents I've collected over the years, but the paper
was the hardest thing to get. The commercial parchment I've seen looks too phony
and the other people selling hand worked paper were worse. It all looked awful.
The only really good looking paper is the stuff I craft.
I prepare the paper myself, which takes a lot of time and is a
real mess. I've
studied ancient papers and documents to see where they crack, wrinkle, tear and smudge.
Every effort is made to duplicate that look, so your document will look like the
real thing. Everyone will be fooled when they see your name
on an historic document.
These documents are only meant for amusement purposes. I hope
none of you will ever betray my trust and try to prove you're Count Smirnoff or
some other pretender nonsense. The only pretenders I approve of to use my
documents with authority are PIRATE Pretenders! Aargggh!
I used to be a forger, but in the wee hours of September 12,
2001 I woke up in fear that I had made one of the terrorists' identity cards! I
rushed to my computer and broke every link with my data base that had anything
to do with forgery. It was scary. So now I only make old documents and
you'd have to be over a hundred years old to be able to use one of them
inappropriately.
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These Letters of Marque and Reprisals are
copied from the original letters.
Many of them are translated from Latin
Others have been translated from Old English
(which is just about as hard to translate as the Latin
was!)
I've changed some of the wording for clarity, and edited some of the
language for space.
I have tried to be as
faithful to the originals a possible.
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To get the ancient look I first fold the paper, bang and slam it
repeatedly until it looks very worn and tired.
Then it is ripped around the edges so it will look like
old paper does when it gets brittle and cracks. I've studied old books and
manuscripts so we could imitate the aging process for my Olde Paper. The idea is to make
it look like it was a long lost document that had been abused by
carelessness and time.
Then it's crinkled and flattened-out. Some of them rip and can't
be used. I only can make 30 sheets at a time and I loose some of those in the
wrinkle process and more in the cooking process. My set up isn't very efficient.
It's definitely an artisan thing.
After that I soak them in a mixture of different leaves
and other stuff. Soaking is the worst part of the process because some more of
the sheets fall apart or tear when they're wet and taken out of
the bath and separated. Separated, that's another pain. When they touch while in
the hot bath liquid no discoloration takes place and that sheet is discarded
also.
Last comes the drying. Each fragile paper is set in the sun to dry and get
crisp (they're usually blown all over the yard when the wind comes up).
When dried they are further flattened and pressed in my sooper-dooper document
press. They stay under pressure for about six months. The effect is that the
paper looks like it was pressed within the pages of a book or under a pile of
records that have long since been forgotten.
This is the new, improved sooper-dooper paper press. I painted it black.
Tip: Like any old document ours should be kept away from direct sunlight
to reduce fading.
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