After my recent embarrassment at having a commenter point out that the “undated” Minnis & Ewer curb walk actually has a (faint) date, I resolved to take a closer look at other Minnis & Ewer stamps. On my walk tonight I passed one I had previously blogged about on Kalamazoo. I took a closer look and I am still confident it is undated (or at least that the date is completely worn off). But a short way further on I saw another one that did have a date, worn but readable. So much for my previous claim that “all the ones I’ve seen are undated” – apparently I was not looking hard enough. I was going to use that one for tonight’s entry, but something unexpected happened. I turned the corner northward on Pennsylvania and found another Minnis & Ewer stamp, this one with a very clear date. So that one will be tonight’s entry. (I’ll probably feature the other one another time.)
That date, August 1910, makes this the oldest dated Minnis & Ewer that I have found so far. It is on the east side of South Pennsylvania Avenue between Kalamazoo and Prospect.
It seems I generalized too quickly about Minnis & Ewer leaving stamps undated. This is a beautifully preserved stamp for being 110 years old and the slab is in good shape too.
It’s really amazing how well the Minnis and Ewer stamps are preserved. The dates might be worn down but the stamp itself looks as sharp as anything made this past decade.
I agree. I was amazed to discover how old these were because back before I started keeping this blog and did the initial research on the company, I assumed they were on the new side. They look great and I wonder what they did to ensure they would be preserved so well. Was it just that they had a deeper stamp than most? I don’t know, but I’m happy for it.