This Department of Public Works stamp is on the north side of Hickory Street between Jones and Holmes. I’ll always collect a diagonal DPW stamp; they seem almost always to be from 1921. This one has a further quirk in that the year has been stamped upside-down at a rather haphazard angle.
I suspect this one is actually a pair to another diagonal one a couple of lots east on Hickory, close to the corner of Holmes.
This rugged and worn stamp from the north side of Larned Street between Jones and Holmes seems hopelessly illegible at first blush. A comparison with other stamps, however, reveals that it is probably a William Meister stamp from 1921.
This is one of my favorite curiosities to catalogue, a diagonal stamp. All of the diagonal Department of Public Works stamps I’ve found date from 1921 except one (which has a 1924 date). Some specific foreman must have favored diagonal stamps around that time, or at least that’s my theory.
This stamp is near the northwest corner of South Holmes Street and Hickory Street, just barely on Hickory.
I found another diagonal DPW stamp, on the west side of Shepard Street between Marcus and Elizabeth. This one is very, very worn, so it’s not surprising that I’ve apparently overlooked it on many walks through this block. I know what it says only because the shape of a DPW stamp is so familiar.
The date is practically illegible. As with several other diagonal DPW stamps I’ve found in the area, the last digit is clearly a 1, but the penultimate digit is obscure. It looked almost like a “3” to the eyes but when I leaned down and felt it, I thought it felt like a 2, same as the others.
I found another diagonal DPW stamp! A pair, this time, on facing blocks. This is on the west side of Shepard just south of Marcus, in front of the house on the corner.
The year is extremely hard to read. I can definitely make out that the last digit is a 1. The decade digit is a lot murkier. Feeling it I thought I made out 2, thus 1921, but I can’t be at all sure. 1931 is another possibility.
This stamp, on the east side of the 300 block of Regent Street (between Kalamazoo and Michigan), is very worn and is more easily visible at certain times of day, especially on a sunny late afternoon. I’ve learned that just because I can’t read a stamp at first doesn’t mean I never will; sometimes it’s a matter of passing it at the right time. I really wanted a picture of this one despite my recent glut of Department of Public Works stamps because of its strange placement.
The great majority of stamps are centered, left-to-right, at the bottom of the slab. Occasionally they are at the top of the slab instead. But this is the only one I have seen like this, diagonal in a corner. I have seen plenty of similar DPW stamps, but all of them more conventionally placed. I wonder what happened here.
The date is difficult to read, but after seeing it in a few different lighting conditions and feeling it carefully with my fingers, I am pretty confident it is 1921. There seems to be a month stamped before the year, but it is illegible. Maybe someday I’ll walk past it at the right time.