The World War Two era letter I purchased on Ebay arrived.Not having seen one of these letters in years, I had forgotten how small they actually were. The image used in this blog post has my car keys to provide a point of reference. Folded they are obviously smaller.
I knew the letters were censored, but I was unaware of how they were actually sent to the United States from Europe. The National Postal Museum has an article on their website that explains the process. Something comparable to microfilm was actually used.
So while that's Eddie's actual signature on the letter, it's not the same letter that he actually wrote. And, based upon the relative size of the letter received, the original letter was probably larger than the one that was actually mailed.
Whether this is an original or a derivative copy is a question for another day.
