Oakland Underfoot

2606 Mathews Street, Berkeley

Dated Jepsen Brothers stamps with this escutcheon range from 1911 to 1937, and I’m still missing five dates in that stretch.

3141 San Pablo Avenue

Most Dahlquist stamps from this period include the month. Maybe he was in a hurry and didn’t add that part here.

3070 Champion Street

The date is barely a whisper; at least it’s some time in the 1920s. The 1922 directory lists three Farrers — Robert, Fred and Arthur — as concrete workers, all at 7305 E. 14th Street, so this must be Fred and Robert’s outfit. They’re clearly related in some fashion to Farrer & Sons, attested with a mark from 1926. The evidence is scant.

1418 Harmon Street and 3234 Baker Street, Berkeley

Nels J. Lindstrom used a variety of stamps in his long career: an oval mark in the early 1910s and a racetrack mark from 1922 to the 1940s. In between, he used straight text with various configurations. These two 1920 marks differ in the placement of the date, but the letters, including the tiny “S”, are the same.

1314 Harmon Street, Berkeley

The early years of Schnoor Bros. are quite rare in Oakland, or at least they’re not marked.

1612 100th Avenue

Assuming I’m correct with the date, this mark establishes F. E. Flaherty at a very early time indeed.

5620 Edgerly Street

This pushes Rasmussen back another year.