name papers and “crossed writing”

I sometimes get questions about how to make name papers, especially of the "turn the paper and write your name crosswise over the target’s" varieties.

A while back, I took a photo of what such a sample paper might look like, and I’ve been meaning to post it. My impetus for doing so today is that in unrelated work, I found a digital copy of an 1832 letter to Mary Custis Lee from her aunt that illustrates on a larger scale exactly this sort of writing. The digital archive of which it’s a part describes the letter thus:

The letter is an example of a "crossed" letter, meaning that it was written in one direction, rotated, and then written cross-wise to save paper. Sometimes the respondents would write across the original letter and send it back. See also a letter in the collection from Robert E. Lee to his children.

The letter has nothing to do with conjure per se, but it’s just pretty darned cool and I wanted to share it. You can see the full letter here, at I Remain: A Digital Archive of Letters, Manuscripts, and Ephemera.

Anyway, here’s the sample "crossed names" name paper I made to upload: