It's Time to Think About Halloween and Christmas

Century-old rubber letter stamps destined for Facebook Marketplace find new life in clay. Check out my Pope Leo cardboard fans too.

I bought a set of old rubber stamps a few years ago at a local antique shop while I was fresh in the world of wood type and letterpress. I skipped past the set’s appearance, a marred wood lid cracked horizontally taped horizontally, but I was charmed by what was inside. The ARISTOCRAT Sign Marker in a faded orange print with inked stamps in black and red, clearly what seemed to me the work of a child, but the set was most definitely intended for an adult. The kit is “ an uptown the minute device for printing window and store signs, price tickets, bulletins and labels. Operation simple and raids. Results Neat and Atractive. Sold by Russell J. Hogg, 119 Winchester Avenue, Chicago.

I bought it instantly for about $20, not noticing until the other day, that many vowels and some consonants are missing. I used it almost right away to print, using an ink pad, disappointed with the results that the hard rubber stamps made.

I put the musty-smelling kit away. More recently, I put it on Facebook Marketplace, marking it down more than once. Last week, I had an idea, maybe these stamps would work in clay? I brought the whole shebang to Milwaukee Makerspace’s Norwich facility where there’s a pottery studio.

I rolled out a slab of red clay on a press and I began to create words with the stamps. I was immediately enchanted. These stamps didn’t work well on paper, but they were fantastic in clay.

Just how common were these sign markers back in the day when entrepreneurs were hanging out a shingle, trying to promote their business and sales? Let me know in the comments.

Check out the imprint of these old rubbers stamps in clay. Have you ever tried making this kind of an impression?

The star imprints were actually made using laser-cut stars from the local dollar store. I’ll be using them again, just wait. Now for that lovely word stamp FOR. I’ll find a use for it yet.

I’ve turned the slab marked HALLOWEEN (with two leaves for the letter E) into a candy tray, that I think that my Halloween-loving sister-in-law would love and the word LEAF (with the leaf symbol standing in for the E) into a small key tray for my nephew.

I now wish I had the missing letters so I could stamp out words like “JUST MY TYPE” and write out other people’s names, create commemorative trays for birthdays, graduations and wedding anniversaries. While writing this story, I had to look on eBay at other sign markers for sale. I was fascinated by the sheer glut of these markers. These must have been a cheap, quick alternative to getting signs, labels and bulletins printed on a proof press in a store basement.

I suspect that the rubber stamps in these sign marker kits are just as hard as mine are. But it was great to give them new life when I ended the life of a bunch of wood type made on a CNC router at the same Makerspace. I’d held onto them for more than a year, thinking I could trim them just right and use them. But the trimming was too exact for my beginner’s hand and eye and into the trash the type-high end grain maple hardwood went. I just couldn’t see myself using them and they were not only taking up precious shelf space in my storage area, they were taking up part of my brain as an unfinished project.

Wood type cast-offs in the trash at the local Makerspace. Certainly type makers back in the day tossed type that didn’t make the cut.

Trashing them was hard in a way. I think of all the perfectly fine wood type that was trashed, dumped and burned when printers were moving away from moveable type. What a waste that was. Certainly my wood type-in-the-making was a waste of a time and money, but time is valuable and I’m moving on and back to my hard rubber stamps.

Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience. You looked to dump or sell a typewriter, posters or type, but just as you were about to make your decision, you paused and looked at your discard, got a new idea and acted on it right away? That’s precisely what I did with my rubber stamps. It was probably only a few days between the idea and the clay impressions. Now, I’m excited about new possibilities.

A step back to another type of impression. The Pope Leo cardboard fans. Here’s what I ended up printing on my provisional press using a mix of wood and metal type. I’d bring it if I were going to the sold-out event on Saturday in Chicago to honor the new pontiff. What are your thoughts?

Imperfect. Only God is perfect, but I like these as a first attempt. Used wood and metal type on pasteboard leftover from a Hamilton Wood Type Museum wood type workshop.

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