Rubber stamps seem to have made an impression on our social consciousness.
They have been featured as gags on popular cartoons, they are present in our colloquialisms (one may speak of getting the ?rubber stamp of approval?). Their commercial use has been so prolonged that they have made their way into our language and culture.
It is not really clear who invented the rubber stamp. L.F. Witherell, James Orton Woodruff, and Henry C. Leland have all attempted to claim the honor, and none can be dismissed or confirmed as the first to have combined the idea of ink and vulcanized rubber in specific patterns to make a mark on a box or manufactured good.
It is confirmed, though, that the invention of the rubber stamp was certainly an American innovation. Stamp manufacturing became quite a serious business, developing into a skilled trade with its own unions, guilds, and trade journals.
Recently, rubber stamps have made a jump from the world of business into the world of crafts. The first stores to feature and sell rubber stamps as a creative outlet were very few, and sprung up in the 1980s. They featured small amounts of stamps with different designs on them, the most being 30.
The stamp craze did not take long to set in, however, as people realized how easy stamping was when it came to personalizing or decorating any number of objects, from woodcrafts to cards. There are now thousands of stamp stores and books that cater to practitioners of the rubber stamping hobby, selling millions of stamps with different designs and all other materials (such as ink) necessary for the hobby.
Collecting rubber stamps is also a hobby for some. These collectors look for rubber stamps that are unique and original, and some of the rubber stamps that were used by companies that are now gone are valuable commodities in the rubber stamp collecting world.
The business of rubber stamps has shifted since their invention over a century ago. Once a symbol of a particular business, rubber stamps have become a business themselves. It looks like the rubber stamp has left its mark firmly on our society.
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