Valentine Puzzle Purse

Puzzle Purse Valentine Card: an Enigmatic Love Letter

UPDATE: Now available with print-text instead of handwritten text!

A "puzzle purse" were a type of valentine's card structured as a puzzle to read and to un-/refold. Scattered among their many folds were verses that had to be read in a certain order. (1)

This is the printable, recreated version of a late-18th-century puzzle purse written by a dramatically smitten lover. The original wording has been slightly changed to fit a more brought and gender-neutral recipient. You can personalize it by adding names to the front, colouring the hearts in the middle or by embelleshing the blank spaces with your own tender sentiments.

On Research and Folding Techniques:

When a friend in my online community shared a picture of this one historical love letter, I felt immediatly intrigued. After some searching I found the original handmade object, apptly named Puzzle Purse Valentine Card dated to c.1790, in the online archive of The Postal Museum (2). When looking for folding techniques attributed to this kind of card, the common consensus seems to be a niffty twist-and-fold kind of style (3). In the version 1 print document you will be able to do exactly that. It unfolds quite beautifully and the pocket this puzzle purse creates can be used to hide some heartfelt gifts. Folding instructions are further down below.

However, while testing this puzzle purse style of folding with a mock-up of that original card, the heart-shape in front simply refused to become a cohesive picture. In some parts the written text also didn't make too much sense. After some more searching I came upon a flickr folder by The Postal Museum with pictures of objects from their archive (4) used in episode 8 of The Peoples Post, a 15 part documentary Series for BBC 4 Radio (5). This folder includes a kind of rudimentary folding guide that shows the puzzle to clearly be cut in specific places and that it is folded in a more complicated kind of pattern (6). The documentary episode is, unfortunately, not online anymore so this photograph was my sole source of actual folding information. In version 2 of the folding instructions you will find how I, personally, interpreted the approach to this puzzle purse. However, I did tweak the middle and end part a little to make this card a bit more sturdy. Even with these changes it still feels a bit flopsy and could probably benefit from further improvements.

Should you have questions/find my musings on this completely wrong or should you have more information on this particular valentine card, folding style or on that lost BBC 4 postal episode I would love to hear from you in the comments!

References:

(1) Barth, Edna: Hearts, Cupids and Red Roses. The Story of the Valentine Symbols, New York 1974, S. 25.

(2) Original puzzle purse from c. 1790 at the online archive of The Postal Museum, https://catalogue.postalmuseum.org/collections/getrecord/GB813_OB1995_263

(3) An example of a website/blog post talking about this puzzle purse style of folding: https://kitkemp.com/design-threads-paper-puzzles/

(4) Flickr folder "Love Letters" by The Postal Museum, https://flic.kr/s/aHsjxmQnbc 

(5) A Something Else production for BBC 4 Radio: Love Letters. Episode 8 of 15, in: The People*s Post. A Narrative History of the Post Office, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0184s2q 

(6) Puzzle Purse folding guide by The Postal Museum https://www.flickr.com/photos/postalheritage/6510176199/in/album-721576284148914...

Folding Instructions:

• Version 1: I changed and rotated part of the frontal heart pieces to fit with this style of folding. The OC Public Libraries Youtube channel shared this helpful tutorial on how to recreate this type of puzzle purse.

• Version 2: This is the original layout of the puzzle purse. In the download section you will find a step-by-step photoseries instructing you on how I cut and folded this paper puzzle. Should the beginning (preparing the creases of the paper for the upcoming folds) of this guide be unclear, I recommend watching the video above, since the preparation stage is identical.