Once upon a time I was walking up East 11th, accompanying my father to a parking garage, when I saw Casey Rubber Stamps. I’ll never forget that moment. What a weird store. It is devoted exclusively to rubber stamps, and they make them all in the back of the shop. The only other thing they sell are ink pads in a rather wide variety of colors and sizes. It’s a very small space so you may need to wait to enter if there are more than 3 or 4 people in the store. Teeny tiny.
Only in New York City, right? Coolest store ever. Since the owner makes custom items and resides in the East Village, there are some REALLY freaky stamps available. Such as body parts, insects and other types of animals (there is an entire page in his catalog comprised exclusively of different fishes), forms of transportation, religious symbols, patterns, stylized letters… here’s a random page in the catalog (page 63):
Freakin’. Awesome. I strongly recommend checking out this store even if you can’t think of any reason to use a stamp ever in your lifetime. It’s just a cool place to visit. Plus, I like that when you begin to approach the shop, you can smell the rubber.
The owner is pretty open to answering questions but he’s scatterbrained so you have to wait until he’s not too busy and be patient. Oh, and if you don’t live in the East Village, you can check out the majority of his catalog on his website: http://caseyrubberstamps.com/index.php. But if you do…
Casey Rubber Stamps, 322 E. 11th St., between 1st and 2nd avenues.
Thrive 