Back of Chronicle and Examiner Envelopes

[traveller1st]

Very nice thinking to check against the contents W, i.e the letters.

I have more I can look at regarding these and will but just a word of caution first.

When it comes to things like pressure or pen weight or type of pen etc you can't make that comparison accurately. Now I'm not talking about looking at something on screen vs having the thing in your hand, we are all subject to that constraint unless someone here owns an original Zodiac letter. I'm talking about what we do have to work with, but more importantly the technical provenance of these items.

In this instance we have a little assistance in that there are 3 sources - The SF Chronicle, The Vallejo Times-Herald and The SF Examiner. The assistance is that two of these, or at least part of two of these (letters) are of sufficient quality to suggest that, in the commission of these 3 letters and their envelopes, at least two different pens were possibly used. I would even go as far as to change the possibly to probably and even throw in a devil-may-care, in all likelihood.

Why so cautious?

Well quite simply it's experience. I've copied more things in more different ways and combinations of those ways in 20+ years as a designer than I care to remember. I've seen how and in what specific ways the quality of certain mechanisms vary in the same time period and over time, even short periods of time like a week or even a day. How the quality of the material onto which you are copying onto and from can affect distortions you wouldn't expect. From photographs to PMT's (photo mechanical transfers, re-pro camera) to faxes to copiers to scanners. The degrees of variation within these methods alone are many nevermind when you start combining them and I have.

This is what I mean when I say 'technical provenance'. Even in this wonderful digital age there are and have been changes affected to what we have ultimately ended up with in front of us on our screens.

Here's a little example.

Which one is the heavier pen?

weights.jpg

[traveller1st]

I've noticed something else that might be slightly awry.

If anyone cares to take time, and I think this is where we should start with this, can you, from the sources we have, match the envelopes to the letters visually?

Even just have a look and tell me what issues you start to notice. I may have spotted something but I need to check and don't have the time right now.

[Tahoe27]

I agree about being cautious about copies....that's why those high-res photos are so important, imo.

[Wier]

I've noticed something else that might be slightly awry.

If anyone cares to take time, and I think this is where we should start with this, can you, from the sources we have, match the envelopes to the letters visually?

Even just have a look and tell me what issues you start to notice. I may have spotted something but I need to check and don't have the time right now.

Well just visually, it looks like the Times Hearld ( even though not part of the comparisons) stands alone. The ink is running, it's smudged as is part of the envelope. Letter and envelope fit together. The paper also looks inferior on this one.
To be honest, I wouldn't change the others either, save for my earlier comment i.e it "looks like" the back of the Chronicle envelope is closer visually to the Examiner letter. That said,it also appears (chronicle letter) that the pen is on the way out, the writing gets weaker the further he goes. This matches the front of the Chronicle envelope. ( same pen on the way out).However,I wouldn't be at all surprised if the back was written with a different pen. The printing is consistent throughout with no sign of "fade"

I actually have good Hi resolution "copies" of both Chronicle and Examiner letters. Short of something I really do not understand I can see no way these two letters were written with the same pen. After re-examining I couldn't even account for it as pessure related...it just looks like two different pens!

[morf13]

I've noticed something else that might be slightly awry.

If anyone cares to take time, and I think this is where we should start with this, can you, from the sources we have, match the envelopes to the letters visually?

Even just have a look and tell me what issues you start to notice. I may have spotted something but I need to check and don't have the time right now.

Well just visually, it looks like the Times Hearld ( even though not part of the comparisons) stands alone. The ink is running, it's smudged as is part of the envelope. Letter and envelope fit together. The paper also looks inferior on this one.
To be honest, I wouldn't change the others either, save for my earlier comment i.e it "looks like" the back of the Chronicle envelope is closer visually to the Examiner letter. That said,it also appears (chronicle letter) that the pen is on the way out, the writing gets weaker the further he goes. This matches the front of the Chronicle envelope. ( same pen on the way out).However,I wouldn't be at all surprised if the back was written with a different pen. The printing is consistent throughout with no sign of "fade"

I actually have good Hi resolution "copies" of both Chronicle and Examiner letters. Short of something I really do not understand I can see no way these two letters were written with the same pen. After re-examining I couldn't even account for it as pessure related...it just looks like two different pens!

I was thinking maybe it was running low on ink

[traveller1st]

They more than likely are different pens. I just wanted to highlight that you can't always be sure exactly what you're looking at when it comes to what we have, hi-res files or not unless they were modern hi-res copies, then you have a better chance. I don't think I've seen any fully hi-res copies of any of the Zodiac stuff. There are files that are pretty good and compared to some are hi-res but it's not full hi-res.

Here's the answer to the question I posed either about which pen was heavier. The answer is neither.

weights.jpg

They are both the same pen from the same letter. Just different pages.

pg1pg2.jpg

So which one is correct? or rather more accurate? No idea.



Regarding the envelopes. Does it seem likely that a polygraph machine would be employed just to do the backs of two out of the three envelopes in this group? I don't see the logic in that. I still that duplication is the most likely explanation here.

Anywho, the envelopes and letters together.

withenv.jpg

And a large overlay of the two back. I'm 99% sure these are the same back from one envelope. The missing 1% is that I can't actually hold the two envelopes in my hands to be sure. Every little bobble on the line edges match and there's even the same artifact on both that the same shape (highlighted by red arrow). The only thing I had a slight problem with was the S in Rush but not enough to not be able to put it down to copy distortion.

big2.jpg

So. I think they are the same and that means we dont have the back for one of those envelopes.

[morf13]

Alright, so after re-examining these letters up close yet again, any Manalli stuff jump out at you?

[traveller1st]

Alright, so after re-examining these letters up close yet again, any Manalli stuff jump out at you?

Doesn't seem to work that way for me. I'm more likely have something Zodiacesque jump out at me looking at the POI's samples rather than the other way round, usually. Short answer, no lol.

[Wier]

Excellent job with the graphics Trav and nice analysis. It seems, if you are correct, that the missing back would be the Chronicle..would you agree?
That again makes it all the more frustrating for me as the two hi resolution copies I have came from San Francisco. I've yet to confirm the exact provenance but this must have been a very early mix up in the process. Would you agree that if you are correct that we must be dealing with many copies of copies?

[Tahoe27]

What's up with this?

Check out the front of the SF Chronicle letter with the exclamation point: http://zodiackiller.com/SFCEFHR.html

Now look at this copy Tom provided @ zk.com of the Examiner's envelopes: http://zodiackiller.com/SFEEHR.html

The SAME "Editor !" is shown sideways next to the envelopes.

What part would that (on the Examiner) have been written?