Before the Rubber Stamp Manufacturers’ Guild, there were Rubber Stamps……

If you Google “When were rubber stamps first invented, and by whom?”, you will find a number of conflicting opinions offered.  Reading through the various links, the following appears to offer a reasonably reliable answer.

According to the online resource site “How Products are Made”, the story of rubber stamps began in 1736 when French explorer Charles Marie de la Condamine discovered rubber in the Amazon River Basin.  Initially, rubber was used to erase lead pencil marks.  Unfortunately, the rubber turned into jelly when the temperature rose making it ineffective.  Charles Goodyear solved this problem in 1839 – when he spilled a mixture of sulphur and gum rubber onto a hot stove thereby curing the rubber.  Goodyear named and patented this vulcanization process in 1844.  However, throughout the 1800’s objects used as marking devices were made from other non-rubber materials.  In fact, mechanical hand stamps (made from metal) were prominent through the 1800’s.

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