Interesting Facts about Rubber Stamps
The history of rubber stamps is littered with interesting facts. In 1736, for example, French scientist Charles Marie de la Condamine sent a sample of ‘India’ rubber back to France after making his discovery in the Amazon River. Over a century later, the rubber he discovered went on to help make the rubber stamps that we know and love. But of course that was not the original use of the rubber plant and its wonderful properties. Condamine noted how he had ‘…seen a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the mark of black lead pencil.’ In 1770, the French put the idea to use by crafting small cubes of rubber to rub out pencil marks. But at that time the rubber cubes were so expensive that they did not gain wide popularity or use.
Earlier in the century in South America, tribes were found playing with a sticky bouncy ball made of rubber but their fun and games failed to arouse any interest from the scientific community. Other tribes were discovering other uses for the rubber plant including using it as an adhesive to add extra flair to their outfits.
In Australia, aboriginal tribes were said to have used burnt rubber as part of a tattooing process – rubber soot adding to punctured skin gave the ideal results. Not that we’d recommend doing it to yourself!
It is suggested that rubber stamps were used by Native Americans in order to mark patterns on their body that they would later tattoo. For a less permanent tattooing solution in modern times rubber stamps in with various patterns (including birds, flowers and tribal symbols) are used to mark the skin as temporary tattoos.
In the early 1860s, the younger brother of the rubber stamp came into existence in the form of the brass mechanical dating stamp. An American inventor is said to be the father of the mechanical hand stamp and before his invention most stamping was done by hand and was a taxing procedure.
There is some dispute over who actually invented the first rubber stamp and indeed, when. L.F. Witherell claimed to have invented the rubber stamp by accident when cutting stencils out of thin sheets of rubber packaging. Attaching these rubber letters to an old bedpost he went about creating an almost perfect ink impression as he stamped various surfaces. But at an earlier date another man was using a curbed bit of wood with rubber letters mounted on it was being used to stamp bath tubs in New York City.
As previously noted, the history of rubber stamps is also closely interlinked with that of the dentistry industry as their invention was helped along by the use of rubber in dentistry moulds.
In modern times, the majority of rubber stamps are custom-made and made for business. Often these business rubber stamps include a business logo, company address and contact information. In most cases these kinds of rubber stamps are built to order, but they are also available with moveable parts allowing the owner to change the letters, numbers and more to suit their own needs.
