I picked up this relatively rare Ed Brackins stamp on my walk tonight. It’s the latest dated one I have; the two others with dates are from the early 1950s. I think it says 1960, but I can’t be entirely sure of the last digit. I also failed to note where I found it, so I know I was somewhere in the area bordered by Regent, Lathrop, Kalamazoo, and 496, but that’s the best I can do. I will look for it on an upcoming walk and come back and edit this once I have found it.
I decided to walk a bit in a different neighborhood, Old Town near Bancroft Park, to try to get some new stamps. I didn’t find anything entirely new there on a short jaunt, but I think this is another instance of the hard-to-read stamp on Elizabeth Street that I thought might read “Buonodono.” Unlike that one (which is undated) this one seems to bear a date of 1961.
It’s on Ohio Avenue near the northwest corner of Ohio and Taft.
It’s final grading week and I spent last night up until the early hours grading exams and I’ll probably be doing it again tonight, so here’s a late and low-key update. This is from a driveway apron on the east side of Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. I’ve been able to see the date for a while, but recently the name has also suddenly become more visible. It’s hard to see in this photo, but the last several letters are SSETT indicating it is, unfortunately, just a regular old C. Gossett stamp, similar to very many others on this block.
I’ve never been able to learn anything in my research about C. Gossett or find a single reference to them, despite how many sidewalks they laid in around here in the 1960s.
There are a few little churches which, while obviously not formally affiliated with CMU, are tucked surprisingly tightly into campus near the building where I work. They are all small, low-slung, modern-looking buildings. It was outside one of them, Christ the King Lutheran Chapel, that I found this sidewalk graffiti.
I think it reads “G.H. + P.K. Nov. 9 1964” although I am not confident about the second set of initials. The year makes sense as likely being when the sidewalk was first constructed. According to Christ the King’s “About Us” page, the chapel was dedicated in 1966.
Here’s a B. Traverse stamp from right nearby the illegible one I showed you last time, on the west side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine. I felt like I had to take a picture of something legible that day, so this is what you get.
Continuing on my stamp-collecting expedition into the Pinecrest neighborhood, I found this stamp on Rolling Brook Lane north of Red Leaf. At the time it was totally illegible to me, but I took photos in hope that they would make the name visible. Sometimes that works, and this time it did. Once home, I was pretty sure that the first word was Fessler and the second started with a B – likely Bowman, since I am already familiar with Fessler & Bowman. The difference is that all the previous Fessler & Bowman stamps I have found were quite recent, from 2016 and 2017. This one is from the 1960s and based on being able to make out a flat line on top of the last number I am pretty sure it is a 5.
According to the company history on Fessler & Bowman’s Web site, the business started in 1963, so this is one of their early works.
Here, by the way, is the corner of Rolling Brook Lane and Red Leaf Lane. You can see why I initially noted the name of the street as “Rollingbrook.”
A little further south on Rolling Brook from my last entry, still on the west side, I found more LPW stamps. This one is on the sidewalk proper and this time the date appears to be 1966 or 1968 – thanks to the curvy font it’s hard to be sure. I have noticed that stamps from this era often use this same typeface for dates even when it’s a different contractor and even when the typeface used for the name is dissimilar. Sadly, I still have no insight as to who LPW is.
The house this stamp is in front of was built in 1967, according to East Lansing’s online property records.
Apologies for missing my usual Monday entry this week. It’s midterm grading season and I’m run ragged, which also accounts for why this post is coming at 3:30 in the morning.
Continuing with last week’s exploration of the Pinecrest neighborhood near Lake Lansing and Coolidge, I tried walking further south on the curiously dead-ended street. I discovered its name to be Rollingbrook Lane, or so I thought based on the street sign, which appears to render it as one (cramped) word. Google Maps says it is two words and so does the city’s online property database. I was hoping to find some older and possibly unusual stamps. I knew the 1980s and 2000s stamps I had been finding could not date to the development of the subdivision, since the houses had a 1960s look to them.
Once I got south of Red Leaf Lane, I found a stamp of the appropriate vintage on the west side of the street. It’s hard to read but I recognize it as a C.E. Schneider stamp. I find a lot of those from right around this same year, 1968, which is also the year of the house this is in front of. I always like when I find a stamp of the same date as the building it’s in front of, suggesting it dates to the original construction. Still, I continued walking in hope of finding a new-to-me stamp.
Here’s another extremely worn stamp from the northernmost block of Horton Street, on the west side of the street. This one I recognized more readily, as a C. Wilkinson stamp. The date is 1960s and I think it’s 1965, though I’m not entirely confident of the last digit.
I wonder why so many stamps on Horton are so worn compared with the same vintage stamps on other blocks? It does seem like there are more of these very faint ones around there.
This stamp is near the north end of Horton, on the east side of the street. I intended to present it as illegible, but when I got home and looked at the photograph I suddenly realized I could recognize it after all. Sometimes the camera sees something that I can’t see with my eyes. It’s definitely a T.A. Forsberg stamp. I’m not sure of the last digit of the date, which otherwise appears to be 1960s.
This is about as worn as a stamp can get and still be readable at all. It’s almost gone, lost to history.