Came across this oddity in my desk drawer, no clue or recollection of how I came by it:
This is a “programmable” rubber stamp of the style that has several parallel bands thet allow you to change what the stamp says. Familiar examples are ones that might allow you to change the date (Month/Day/Year) or condition (Paid/Received/Notified) etc. This particular stamp is marked “Bunting Stamp Co. Pittsburgh 281-5418” . Now for the REALLY odd part:
The stamp has four identical bands with capital letters approximately 1/4" high. The bands are rotated by the familiar serrated edge wheels about an inch in diameter. Each band contains the following letters in order:
A M B R O T Y P C Z Q A M (Space) (Space) [Start over]
Presented another way the “print field” would look like this:
(- = space)
A A A A
M M M M
B B B B
R R R R
O O O O
T T T T
Y Y Y Y
P P P P
C C C C
Z Z Z Z
Q Q Q Q
A A A A
M M M M
Of what possible utility could such a stamp be? Particularly puzzeling are the repeated A’s and M’s. Why, if you have the ability to choose any letter on the band, would you need more than one of each selection? Someone? Anyone? PLEASE, I need to sleep tonight!!
Good question. These can be made to client specifications, so you might have found one that has special meaning to only one person.
Here’s a picture for you young whippersnappers who’ve never heard of a manual adjustable stamp that needs an ink pad.
What remains is a puzzle; we must attempt to find some deep meaning or purpose in the series of letters A M B R O T Y P C Z Q A M. Is there anything on the stamp to indicate what company made it?
Could this be for stamping part numbers on items in a small company where all the part numbers were a four-letter sequence? If the part numbers were composed primarily of As and Ms, that might explain the duplication of those letters both as a convenience for quick selection and a backup when one wears out.
I’ve worked with several small manufacturers and vendors who use their own internal item number systems instead of UPCs. They use these numbers because they’re constructed to make sense to the warehouse people, being abbreviations or acronyms or something. Of course, they use laser-printed labels, but I can see them using a stamp like this back in the day.
Quite a few questions to ba answered here (for anyone attempting a deductive solution):
Why are the Letters A and M repeated?
Why are the letters not in alphabetic sequence?
Why are there two spaces on each reel?
Why are there four identical sets of letters?
Maybe there is no meaning; maybe it is a demonstration sample.
It’s interesting that Ambrotyp(or Ambrotype) is a printing process in itself, although I can’t find any connection.
(although, of course I realise that having only four reels, it would not be possible to configure the stamp to produce that word with a single strike).
It could be that it was changed in sequence with the letters being a serial code or something, and that the order of the code went in that order (so it was easier to move the dial up one to another ‘M’ than to rotate back to the previous ‘M’ and that way the next letter after the 2nd ‘M’ would be the one you’d want then anyway). Though I’ve no idea why they’d use that kind of sequence.
It’s interesting that Ambrotyp(or Ambrotype) is a printing process in itself, although I can’t find any connection.
Yes, I also noticed that close-but-no-cigar feature. Which brings up a totally unrelated question: Can someone point me toward the etymology of “close, but no cigar” Perhaps Cecil has already dealt with this.
Meaning
Come disappointingly close to success.
Origin
Early slot machines gave out cigars as prizes.
One down, a zillion to go.
And surely, the “AMBROTYP” connection has to be the smoking gun…
Sure looks tantalyzing but… Do you suppose they put 100 monkeys to work in the factory making up demo stamps and this was one of their best efforts? Surely 1000 monkeys would have hit upon something more useful: “To stamp or not to stamp; that is the impression.”
It would seem unlikely that the stamp would be reset after each individual stamp operation (it would be quicker and easier to write four letters by hand).
What kind of operation requires a set of documents/items to be stamped with an identical four-letter code? Accounting nominal codes?
I would guess that the two spaces would be because there had to be 15 slots on the band because of the physical design of the stamp, and some might go unused if a particular customer only wanted 13 possible settings. Now, WHY those 13 letters, I have no idea.
