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Recently I've been getting/seeing notes from whom I assume to be quite elderly people (I assume that simply because they're 'thank you for buying' notes from online antique vendors). I've gathered quite a collection of them, and the beauty of their handwriting - no doubt quickly written, most often with regular ballpoints or even pencils - amaze me. Then I remember the handwriting of my peers and they have the grace of Twilight prose in comparison to Evelyn Waugh. Did people from the 1960s and beyond have more writing under their belt? But I remember doing quite a lot of writing myself as a schoolgirl, as typed material weren't allowed until university. Penmanship classes? But I had them too. Fountain pens...? They're just pens, it's not like they magically transform handwriting. In all my (scant) years, I haven't actually seen handwriting from any of my peers that made me say, "wow, that is beautiful" (it's mostly 'this is illegible, I don't think this is in any known alphabet'). But I see them all the time amongst the antique vendors. Does anyone know the reason why? Do antique vendors just all have beautiful handwriting...? Or is this a generation thing?