Unusual Cylinder Record Slip

[Curt A]

After years of examining and deciphering old French and German script in genealogy documents, there is no doubt that people stylized their script to personalize it... Spencerian script has a lot in common with old German script, which can be very hard to read, let alone interpret. I definitely believe that the letter in question is an "S", even though it may appear to be an f or a g in modern terms. I could show you a copy of a hand written script entry in my old German family Bible that puzzled us for years. It appeared to list a birth place as something that looked like Wifflebuffburg, Bavaria which is non-existent. With perseverance and study it was eventually translated to the correct location of Mittlebexbach, Bavaria (now Saarland).

All I am saying is that whatever the script style was "meant" to be, it is always re-interpreted by each individual writer... thus many variations. We all have different characteristics in our writing whether cursive or printed that are unique.

[Curt A]

Other suggestions were: a "g" or an "f"
There are already examples of the writer's letters g and f in script on the slip... Looking at those, leads me to conclude that neither of those choices fit his writing style... look at the letter "g" in Talkin-g and the letter f in the word "of".

[phonogfp]

Curt, your points are compelling. I'm 98% on the "S" team...

Thanks for your perspectives.

George P.