Regency Trivia – Sealing Wax and Seals

As we should all know, letters needed to have some method of being secured. That was the use of sealing wax. People have been using one form or another of sealing wax to secure letters and documents since the Middle Ages. Early sealing wax consisted of a combination of bees wax and an extract of the Larix decidua and evergreen whose common name is the European Larch. This yellowish-green extract was called Venice turpentine. The earliest sealing waxes were uncolored. Someone at some later time which has been lost to history, began using vermilion to color the wax red.

By the 16^th Century the recipe for sealing wax had changed and it now consisted of different amounts turpentine, chalk or plaster, shellac, and some sort of coloring. Sealing wax started being used for seal wine bottles and jars of fruit preserves. Depending on the grade of the wax, bees wax was not always used. Although, for public documents, and, I would imagine, the wealthy used sealing wax containing bees wax. Some people perfumed their sealing wax using ambergris, musk, and other scents.

By 1866 sealing wax was available in white, blue, black, yellow, and green.

Sealing wax came the form of a stick (if the stick doesn’t have a wick one must make sure not to blacken the wax) or in granules melted down in a spoon. The impression should be made while the wax is still soft, but when the wax and the seal are at the same temperature.

Below are examples of sealing wax sets. The next post will be about seals.

#RegencyTrivia #HistoricalRomance #ReadaRegency

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