My Stamp Collection

When we first started walking around the neighborhood after moving in 3 months ago, I started noticing small badges affixed to the sidewalk to identify the company that had installed it.

Wm Krause Cement & Asphalt Paving { .img-caption }
Frank J Ginder, successor to Wm. Krause { .img-caption }

Obviously, I needed to photograph every one that I came across. I did a bit of reading on the topic and learned that they're called Foundry Marks or Sidewalk Stamps, and that people who photograph them are called stamp collectors, so I accidentally got a new hobby.

Before we even moved here, I already had a favorite example of the genre: there's a stamp in the sidewalk outside the entry to the Whitney Museum in Manhattan notifying people that the museum is private property, and declaring that your access is by revocable license only. I suppose that stepping over it is like clicking the terms and conditions agreements on software that no one reads.

Whitney Museum of American Art { .img-caption }

The older ones (none of these are dated -- curious the actual vintage, but notice that they're all on sidewalks old enough that the individual stones in the aggregate are showing) have these little plaques:

By Klinck. Super-simple. { .img-caption }
Drehmann, on Parrish St in "Philada." That is going to become my standard abbreviation for this place now. { .img-caption }
Drehmann again, this time on Glenwood Ave in Phila. { .img-caption }
Pennsylvania Asphalt Paving Co, also in Philada' { .img-caption }
United States Artifical Stone Paving Co. { .img-caption }
Walsh Cement Work { .img-caption }

The more modern examples are just literally a stamp placed into the setting concrete.

Bonilla { .img-caption }
Fosonini { .img-caption }
The King of Concrete! { .img-caption }
I like the upside-down '2' characters { .img-caption }
Spade { .img-caption }
Ventura { .img-caption }
The reversed ꓘ in "MARꓘ" is nice. { .img-caption }
This brutalist METROPOLITAN is very striking. { .img-caption }

Update 08 August 2025

VOGT Construction, seen on my walk to the dentist this morning { .img-caption }

Other Entries {#other-entries}

Not from the installers, but in the sidewalk anyways:

In front of one of the houses on Boathouse Row { .img-caption }
A mosaic goat { .img-caption }
Too late to try any of Ashley's Water Ice { .img-caption }

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