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Twelve years ago Solid Stamps started in business based on a very simple concept:
Sell rubber stamps products directly to the end user. No middleman.
This simple and easy to understand concept has proven very successful and to day Solid Stamps has more than 4500 rubber stamps end user customers in the UK. We sell all types of rubber stamps products and it might come as a surprise for many that “the old fashion rubber stamps with a separate ink pad “is still a major part of the rubber stamps market. There are no official statistics on how many rubber stamps products there are sold yearly in the UK but it is assumed to be around 3.5 million. It is probably also a surprise that between 60% and 70% of the rubber stamps product market is still the old traditional rubber stamps we all know with the separate ink pad.
The name Goodyear we connect with automobile tires – but without him rubber stamps would never have been invented. Goodyear invented the vulcanising process. In 1839 Goodyear by accident dropped some rubber mixed with sulphur on top of a hot stove – and that was the start of the vulcanizing process and with that the possibility to make rubber stamps. The first rubber stamps as we know them to day were produced in the 1860´s in the US and since then rubber stamps have been standard inventory in all offices around the world.
Just 10-15 years ago all rubber stamps text was typeset using lead. This may be difficult for us to understand today now that type setting of the rubber stamps text is done using modern computer technology. There was a rubber stamps manufacturer in almost every city and it was often a man and his wife business. There were hundreds of rubber stamps manufacturers around the UK.
Today most of these small sole trader businesses have disappeared and been replaced by fewer larger and more industrialized rubber stamps companies. Even the production process today is based on modern technology. It requires skill and know-how to produce high quality rubber stamps. Solid Stamps has 15 years experience of producing high quality rubber stamps and we are proud to say that we have rubber stamps customers all over the UK who are very satisfied with our service and outstanding quality.
We only use rubber to produce the rubber stamps text plate – and we do this for quality reasons. Most rubber stamps manufacturers use polymer – a plastic substance – because it is cheaper, easier and does not require the same skill and know-how as using rubber does. When using rubber the ink stays on the letters only which gives a sharp impression. When using polymer this is not the case so the rubber stamp impression becomes blurred and often letters like a, o, c, q, g and these types of letters are not sharp because the whole letter is filled with ink.
It is important to be able to read the rubber stamps text when it has been stamped on very expensive documents. Businesses spend a fortune producing documents, promotion brochures and so on – and then they buy bad quality rubber stamps. We believe they do so because they do not know any better. We always advise our customers to go for quality when they buy rubber stamps. The top quality rubber stamps impression is produced when the text plate is made of rubber.
But remember…. if the separate ink pad has dried out then even the best quality rubber stamps cannot produce a good impression.
Today we recommend our customers to use self inking rubber stamps to ensure constant perfect impressions, to avoid the ink pad drying out because the cover stays open and to avoid dirty ink fingers and the mess on the office desk that a separate ink pad may cause.
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