During the time of the hand held Stamp Affixers (1911-1940s) there were 6 main competitors. Many of them appeared to copy the Multipost Stamp Affixer design. It appears that the Multipost Stamp Affixer was probably the most dominate of the bunch, since it appears to be most common.
The Kendall Stamp Affixer had a plunger lock, stamp register (number counter)
that you couldn’t reverse. These were made by the Kendall Manufacturing Company out of Boston Massachusetts. The Stamp machines were first built around 1917-1918. It looks similar to the Wizard Stamp Affixer.
The Multipost Stamp Affixer was made by Commercial Controls Corporation in Rochester
New York. The first Multipost Model 1 was patented in 1911.
The Postamper Affixer looks like a beefier version of the Multiplex. It has thick round
plunder rod and appears to be a little chunky. It was produced by Postamper Company out of Chicago.
The Standard Stamp Affixer was made by the Standard Mailing Machines Company. It looks
very similar to the Multipost Stamp Affixer. Instead of a squared off plunder rode, it has a twisted spiral rod. The side of the unit has an exposed area showing the inner workings of the device.
The Simplex Stamp Affixer looks something out of steampunk. There are a host of gears on the outside of the device. It has the look of the Multipost Stamp Affixer, but with exposed gears. I think this might be the coolest looking stamp affixer out of the bunch. The patent date was around October 28, 1908. I was able to find a patent March 8, 1910 (952439).
The Wizard Stamp Affixer chose a slightly different look. The one we have has patent dates of 1912 and 1913.
- Multipost Stamp Affixer side
- Multipost And Wizard Stamp Affixers
- Multipost And Wizard Stamp Affixers
Most of the companies that produced Stamp Affixers also had stamps made for testing the machines. Some of these stamps can fetch high values for certain collectors.
Many of the Stamp Affixers included a counter on the machine. Every time the plunger is depressed the counter increases by one. We weren’t sure how to reset this number, since we didn’t have access to the inner workings of the machine. Ours read 3,900 before I started messing with it.
The Stamp Affixers also had some type of reservoir to hold water. The water was used to moisten the stamp prior to sticking it on an envelope or package.
Name | Image | Description |
---|---|---|
Kendall Stamp Affixer | ![]() | |
Lightning Stamp Affixer | ![]() | |
Multipost Stamp Affixer | ![]() | |
Postamper Affixer | ![]() | |
Standard Stamp Affixer | ![]() | |
Simplex Stamp Affixer | ![]() | |
Wizard Stamp Affixer |