Friday, October 24, 2014

All Kinds of Obsolete

I just found one of those stamp-wetter thingies while going through miscellaneous belongings with my family:


I love this item. It's very heavy for its size (about two inches across), smooth and cool as only ceramics can be.

If you're not familiar with the device, the idea was that you would lift out the cylinder to add water into the rectangular reservoir. With the cylinder back in place, you'd spin it to bring up a little bit of moisture to wet the back of your stamps so you didn't have to lick all that glue.

I'm not sure I ever used one. Maybe in the 1980s when I had to do a large mailing.

For a long time now, stamps have been self-adhesive, and that only matters if you're even going to send something by mail, rather than electronically or by using UPS or FedEx.

2 comments:

Michael Leddy said...

I like those things. I remember when office desks would often have a glass container with a piece of sponge for the same purpose.

Gina said...

I don't remember using one, but I've seen them in the past. More common was the glass container with a sponge that Michael Leddy mentions. I used one of those many, many years ago when I worked as a secretary.