Rubber stamping machine and plates?

[Rolly]

Hello friends,
I inherited a huge assortment of rubber stamping metal plates and wood plates and the machine to make them with. I am not sure how old this thing is as I can't find anything on it. These plates have everything from trees to bears to hearts and more. In the end I see a huge box or box's with hundreds of rubber stamps. But I'd like to know more about it and how old this thing is. Where would go to find this out? Please suggest me.
Thanks!

[gramophoneshane]

Im not sure where you'd find out about rubber stamps.
A quick google search brought up quite a few links, but I didn't see a forum like this listed.
There is a stamp collector (not to be confused with postage stamps)with a brief history here-

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y20 ... bu0102/s07

All but one of the links down the bottom are inactive, but she does have an active Ebay account which you may be able to contact her through for advise.

There is also a fellow on youtube who has a rubber stamp museum of sorts, and perhaps he could steer you in the right direct.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppkdGs1M8Co[/youtube]

I actually have a small collection of rubber stamps myself. My grandmother & her two sisters were all school teachers in the 1920s & 30s, and I ended up with the odd merit stamp etc that they used for childrens homework etc.
Then I got quite a few from a friends grandmothers shed that probably date from the 50s or 60s, then I also seem to have accumulated some from family & friends businesses over the years.
One of these I still use occasionally. It's a rather large contraption that you dialed up numbers on, & was used to price articles in a shop. I now use it to stamp the record number of 2M wax cylinders on replacement lid labels lol