Mounted Rubber Stamps

History of Rubber Stamping

Rubber got its name in the late eighteenth century, when the scientist Sir Joseph Priestly had a famous quote about a substance "excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the mark of black lead pencil." Hence the "rubbing out" of pencil marks gave it the term "rubber". Up until this time, people wishing to erase pencil marks had to use bread crumbs.

Rubber Stamping owes much gratitude to a hardware store owner who decided to quit his job to solve the "sticky problem" he had heard about. Though his persistence was tested time and again, even filing bankruptcy and going to jail for failure to pay debts, Charles Goodyear eventually discovered that heat was the secret to rubber's "curing".

As early as 1866, a man carved information in a flat piece of rubber and mounted it to a curved block of wood. This 4"x 6" mounted rubber stamp was being used to print information on bath tubs.

Early rubber stamps consisted mainly of words and phrases used to mark packages and manufactured products. Stamping suppliers began to spring up in Ohio and the West.

Rubber stamping as a hobby took off before 1980 with companies such as All Night Media (1974) and Hero Arts (1974). Soon the craze had caught and many other companies decided to cash in on a hobby that would last for decades.

It wasn't until a boom in the 1990's that rubber stamping became so popular with millions of crafter's worldwide. As thousands of companies begin to produce rubber stamps, the availability and unique designs became common everywhere!

Holiday cards video from Youtube: Hey love card.wmv - Stamp With Lyn