Gilded Age Sealing Wax Etiquette

Most correct are the seals with beloved sentiments such as, “Forget Me Not,” “True Friendship,” “With My Hand and Sele.” – A Gilded Wax Seal 
Photo source, Pinterest

The Correct Thing

The correct thing now is to seal one’s letters with red sealing wax if you will, but preferably blue, green or cinnamon colored, and seal with your crest or coat of arms if you choose.  

But more correctly, still with emblems, such as the good old sentimental ones our grandmothers loved: “Forget Me Not,” “True Friendship,” “With My Hand and Sele.”—Chicago Herald, 1893

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Victorian Sealing Wax Etiquette

Don't seal any letters that are going to tropical or very warm countries. The post-office authorities will usually reject them, as the sealing wax may melt and do damage to other mail.

Fashion Even Governs its Style and Colors

The latest pretty fancy is in the use of sealing-wax on feminine correspondence, and not a little time and taste have been expended in thinking out all the curious details of wax etiquette. To bride’s is devoted the white wax that, from the dealers in French stationery, is to be bought impregnated with an odor of orange flower, while embossed on the slender sticks of wax are flowered wreaths of the bridal blossoms. There can now be no mistake in distinguishing a young wife’s letter in the piles of one’s correspondence. When the honeymoon is over and the commonplace duties of life are once again assumed, madam’s letter-wax takes on a more practical tint, and her envelope flaps are held by disks of dark green, red, blue, brown, yellow or violet wax. 

For regular correspondence and small notes one chosen shade is invariably employed, but tact and discrimination are shown by sealing all written dinner invitations with a rich brown wax, sparkling with glints of gold perhaps. A note bidding her women friends to luncheon is distinguished by a red seal; for afternoon tea, gray-green is the proper shade; for balls, white wax touched with gold specks is proper. The wax, however, is only used to hold in safety in the envelope a written card or folded note. Engraved invitations must be trusted to the mucilage-flap for security. 

For widows, the laws for the use of sealing-wax are severe, indeed. Dead, lusterless black is the proper form, so long as the letter-paper wears a black border. When the border and long veil are replaced by cheerfuller signs, the wax brightens to a sober, cold clear gray. Then a pinkish gray, then lavender, violets, and at last, the familiar and brighter colors. These rules, says the authority, hold good in any other senses of bereavement. Young girls employ tinted perfumed wax, pale blue heliotrope, Nile green and buttercup yellow, and never use a more elaborate stamp than their initials. – Philadelphia Times, 1892

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette of Royal Sealing Wax

An array of truly elegant colors of modern day sealing wax ~ “Paris stationers are selling boxes of colored sealing wax with instructions in the etiquette of the use of all of the different shades. Black is for mourning, White for marriage invitations or announcements, Violet for condolence, Chocolate for dinner invitations...” From Etiquipedia’s article on French sealing wax etiquette, of 1910 
– Photo source, Wax Seals. com

A Royal Colour Code

In the days when all correspondence was sealed, there was etiquette about the use of sealing wax. Royalty would give some favorite courtier the sole right to use a certain colored wax, and officers of the state would each have distinguished colors. It’s in much the same way U.S. staff officers of the army wear colored “tabs” nowadays. – San Luis Obispo Tribune, 1922

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

French Sealing Wax Etiquette

“Chocolate Brown” is for dinner invitations – whether or not Caroline Bingley’s brother “will be dining elsewhere.”

The Parisian Sealing Wax Code

Paris stationers are selling boxes of colored sealing wax with instructions in the etiquette of the use of all of the different shades. Black is for mourning, White for marriage invitations or announcements, Violet for condolence, Chocolate for dinner invitations. Ox Blood, although that might be unsuitable for dinner notes, is for business. Young girls are to use Light Pink, and love letters are to be sealed with Ruby. They say that it’s the fashionable Parisians who use the colors according to this code. – Inyo Independent, 1910

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

A Lady’s Writing-Desk Etiquette

Don't seal any letters that are going to tropical or very warm countries. The post-office authorities will usually reject them, as the sealing wax may melt and do damage to other mail.

Don’ts For Your Writing Desk

• Don't address any one as “My dear friend,” or “Dear Friend.” This is old fashioned and out of date. 
• Don't indulge in abbreviations in personal or social letters. In certain business letters certain customary abbreviations are usual which would be bad form in personal letters. 
• Don't used lined paper. If you can't possibly write straight use black lines under your note paper to guide you.  
• Don't write with pencil. It is bad enough to do it and worse yet to apologize for doing it. 
• Don't use a half sheet of paper when you have a little to write on the extra sheet. The economy you effect by dividing sheets in this way is too insignificant to think of for a moment. 
• Don't use colored inks jet black or a blue ink that dries almost black are the only sort sanctioned. 
• Don't use perfumed stationery. It may have been in good form once but it is certainly not at the present time.
• If there are any sachets in your writing desk, take them out. 
• Don't seal your letters unless you are a past master in the art. 
• Don't seal any letters that are going to tropical or very warm countries. The post-office authorities will usually reject them, as the sealing wax may melt and do damage to other mail. 

What Readers Ask... “I am a young girl of 20 and a boy friend of mine of whom I think of a good deal has gone away and has asked me to write. Would it be all right for me to write first or should I wait to hear from him?” Since he is the one who has left it would be customary to wait for him to write the first letter. It is usually the man’s place to write the first letter anyway. — Copyright, 1920, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia