Rubber stamps still leave mark in computer age
CINCINNATI -- In a narrow, rust-colored building on Main Street resides a century-old testament to survival — and to the fact that small and low-tech still have a place in a big, high-tech world.
William B. Hathaway started a rubber stamp shop in the basement of his home on Saunders Street in Cincinnati's Mount Auburn — the neighborhood where President William Howard Taft was born — 107 years ago.
Today, Hathaway Stamp & Identification is one of Cincinnati's oldest, if smallest, businesses. Though its product line has broadened and computer laser technology is now part of the process, it is still a place where the simple rubber stamp is king.
Larry Schultz, who has run the company since 2000, marvels that the grandparents and great-grandparents of some of his current customers probably also used Hathaway stamps to place return addresses on letters and mark court and other official documents.
"It gives you that sense of tradition," says Schultz, 48.
Steve Hewitt, executive director of the Charlotte-based International Marking and Identification Association, the industry's trade association, says there are about 1,700 stamp shops nationwide. Businesses such as Schultz's continue to thrive in the computer age, he says, in part by embracing it.
"Virtually all of our members operate with lasers and computer software," Hewitt says.
Hewitt, a 25-year veteran of the rubber stamp business who says he has known Schultz "forever," says some people thought PCs would mean the end of the rubber stamp businesses, but the opposite has proved true.
"We generate more paper today than ever," he says. "People and businesses need confirmation of things and hard copies on file."
The stamps and Hathaway's other offerings, which include embossers, name tags, signs and labels, are manufactured in a backroom shop. A simple pre-inked stamp can be produced in about five minutes, while the traditional wooden-handle rubber stamp — which some prefer for the satisfying tactile sensation of thumping it back and forth between an ink pad and the document or package being marked — takes longer, usually about a day.
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