Letterlocking: The Nonagon: Japan, Korea, and The Netherlands (1700s-Present) (UH107)

Model found in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries (MIT), Unlocking History Research Group archive, MC 0760.
The nonagon is a rare example of a letterlocking substrate that reduces to a letterpacket with more than one outer panel on each side. It has nine distinct edges. Examples of this category dating from 1650-1815 can be found in the Dutch Prize Papers letter collection at the National Archives, Kew, UK. The structure also persists in Korean jong-i jeobgi and Japanese origami paper-folding traditions, but its origins are unknown to us.
It takes approximately twelve steps to transform the substrate into the letterpacket. First, the sheet is folded from short edge to short edge, and then turned into a long narrow tube by folding it in half, long edge to long edge, four times. A diagonal fold turns the long narrow tube into an L-shape, with one panel slightly longer than the other. A second diagonal fold, in the opposite direction, aligns the narrow panels, or “legs,” so that they are adjacent to one another, creating a triangle shape. The longer leg gets folded back on itself so that it passes along the base of the triangle. The two legs crisscross to hold the structure in place.
This sequence of steps may also result in a seven-sided letterpacket, the septagon, when the legs are neither long nor narrow enough to extend past each other. Differing the lengths of the legs can also result in pentagon and hexagon formats.
We have news! Since this filming, our team of 11 researchers worked together to read an unopened letter virtually - the words and the folds - for the first time, without ever breaking its seal. What does the letter say? Head to our website www.letterlock... to learn all the details and celebrate the launch of letterlocking! Read our findings in our Nature Communications article, doi.org/10.103.... Visit our Dataverse, our open repository for data collected for this project: dataverse.harv....
Produced by MIT Video Production. Directed by Jana Dambrogio and demonstrated by Ayako Letizia. Funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries. Special thanks to MIT Video Production staff, Emily Hishta Cohen, Mary Uthuppuru, and Brien Beidler.
Citation information: Authors: Jana Dambrogio, Ayako Letizia, and the Unlocking History Research Group. Title: "The Nonagon: Japan, Korea, and The Netherlands (1700s-Present)," Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0107/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 107. Date filmed: October 2016. Duration: 1:53. Date posted: October 2016. Video URL: [Insert URL]. Date accessed: [Date].
Copyright 2016-present. Jana Dambrogio, the Unlocking History Research Group, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). All rights reserved. The following copyrighted material is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License creativecommon.... Contact the MIT Technology Licensing Office for any other licensing inquiries.
To find out more about letterlocking, visit letterlocking.org and follow us on social media @letterlocking.
TH-cam URL: bit.ly/foldnonagon or • Letterlocking: The Non...

[@user-kx2qo6gf8c]

I’m so embarrassed what I searched up to find this: “how to fold a iece of paper in koren”

[@s.ytales7010]

Omg same😭

[@june-uni]

Same but 2 years later “folding paper messages in joseon period k-drama”

[@aegwyrt]

My wife (Korean) does this to empty crisp packets before throwing them away so that they take up less space in the bin.

[@HeEDee137]

bae gyuri from Extracurricular netflix, does the same thing. im folding the crisp wrappers too.

[@zurentaetae286]

Me: "How to fold a letter into a ribbon the japanese way"
YT search bar: 😐😕

[@lenanana8]

Thank-you for sharing this beautiful letter writing tradition. Its so sad that writing and sending letters is now almost a thing of the past. I remember being a kid in the 90s and being so excited whenever I received a letter from my penpal

[@chaosreigns7386]

I remember doing this in highschool...one of my friends taught me how to fold that...
I miss okinawa...

[@kelzipan_]

here from see you in my 19th life lol. thanks for this video 🙏🏼

[@amansagar01]

Awesome... Turn out very elegant 😍💖

[@justharris1014]

i've been looking for this

[@sumaiyaakter3019]

Thank you

[@lisamacfarlane6255]

could you do one thats harder to open

[@Kanoshe]

why is this channel in an asmr fashion???

[@nobody-zg3qn]

who else did this to refold their GWSN wish message?

[@soulcutterx13]

But why is it called a nonagon

[@kelzipan_]

there are 9 sides on the folded note