Oakland Underfoot

743 Lincoln Avenue, Alameda

2222 Lincoln Avenue, Alameda

Marks by this maker are very scarce in Oakland; I’ve found only a handful. This one takes the firm’s history back another year.

1715 Lincoln Avenue, Alameda

I have only a single dated example of Testa’s work from Oakland.

743 Lincoln Avenue, Alameda

I’m going to put up a bunch of stamps I collected in Alameda last month. As always, I only use non-Oakland stamps to document dates that I haven’t found in Oakland. Alameda has stamps from a lot of sidewalk makers who don’t appear in Oakland. One reason, especially in the old days, is that the city required a $200 bond in order to do business, which kept a lot of artisans away and reserved street work for the already successful and/or well connected.

LaPlant marks are scarce in Oakland. I expect to find quite a few more dates in Alameda.

1721 Tenth Street, Berkeley

I’ve documented this year before, but those marks had hand-drawn dates.

372 Orange Street

This is much prettier than my previous example of this date.

2427 Tenth Street, Berkeley

Esterly is well represented in Oakland, and this Berkeley mark extends this maker’s work a few years earlier.