Oakland Underfoot

8628 Olive Street

Several years after his record of stamps gives out, Frank Lopes made this careful hand-drawn signature.

1712 86th Avenue

T. A. Ryan went through a lot of changes in 1937, using three different stamps over the course of the year. But on this day he just signed his work by hand.

1960 87th Avenue

2011 86th Avenue

Less than two weeks after placing a somewhat slipshod mark in front of his own address, Banchero did the walkway just down the block and marked it rather aggressively. Because it’s a much better example than my previous one, here it is.

2019 86th Avenue

This mark is special for two reasons. One, it’s a date by this maker I haven’t found before, so I had to collect it. Second, it’s the mark placed at Banchero’s actual address. I would think that he’d have done a more careful job, considering.

1734 Auseon Street

It looks like early in 1922, M. B. Wiggins used large numerals for the date. Later that year he used smaller digits. “2-22” was pretty special. Maybe he started business on 2/2/22, the same day that James Joyce’s Ulysses was published.

1635 86th Avenue

I continue to find new makers from the early days, even after all this time.