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.

"Some people just like the feel of that old-time stamp," Schultz says.

The company produces about 400 stamps weekly, ranging in cost from about $15 for a three-line rubber stamp to $100 for a 3-by-4½-inch pre-inked stamp, favored by architectural, law and engineering offices because of the amount of information that fits on them, he says.

While Hathaway's is relatively small, some of its major clients are not. Its largest is Fifth Third Bank, which accounts for about a quarter of Hathaway's business, Schultz says. Hamilton County and the city of Cincinnati also are among the company's customers, he says.

Fifth Third Bank sourcing/program manager Scott Smith, who buys about 10,000 items annually from Hathaway for the bank's 1,300 branches nationwide, says the stamp company's up-to-date business practices, such as online ordering and electronic billing, have helped make the bank a longtime customer.

"Their product may be a hundred years old, but their technology is very current," Smith says.

Noting that the stamps help bank officials track which teller in what branch processed a particular transaction, Smith adds: "Long-term, there may be a high-tech solution to that, but for the foreseeable future, the stamps do exactly what we need."

Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Patricia Clancy, whose office has done business with Hathaway for decades, agrees.

"Sometimes the low-tech solution can be a cost-effective way of doing business," Clancy says. "We've made great strides in this office in terms of accommodating people over the Internet and through things like electronic filings. But we also still do a lot of good old paper filings, and that's why those stamps are so important to us."

Horstman reports for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Contributing: Dennis Lyons, USA TODAY.