Ray Hackbarth Stamp Identifcation

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Ray Hackbarth Stamps Identification

      One of the more common stamp questions I get is the confusion with Ray Hackbarth stamps. Ray Hackbarth was a leather stamp and swivel knife maker in Phoenix Arizona. Ellis Barnes had made stamps in Southern California for several years and at some point purchased the rights to use the Ray Hackbarth name and moved to Arizona. The confusion comes in with Ellis Barnes marking some of the stamps with “R Hackbarth Phoenix Ariz Stainless” just like the original Ray Hackbarth stamps.
     There are a few ways to differentiate the original Ray Hackbarth stamps from the Ellis Barnes made “Ray Hackbarth stamps”. I’ll go through the points that I look for to determine who made a particular “R Hackbarth” stamp.

Length - the first of these is stamp length. The original Ray Hackbarth stamps are 4-1/8 inch or slightly longer. Ellis Barnes was famous for using a shorter stamp length and his were mostly 3-7/8 inch but to confuse things he sometimes used longer stamp blanks. I have also had some mixed sets of original Ray Hackbarth and Ellis Barnes made ”Ray Hackbarth stamps” that were all the same length. The owner had cut down the original Ray Hackbarth’s to be the same length as the Ellis made Ray Hackbarth’s, probably for consistency in use. Not very often but I have had a few “aha moments” when I found a definite Ray Hackbarth stamp that had been shortened.

Stamp Numbers – this is an easy one. If there is a number on the shank of the stamp that was Ray Hackbarth. He was by some accounts one of the first to do mail order good quality stamps and needed a way to identify particular stamps in a brochure for the customer. Some people say the Ray Hackbarth stamps without numbers were earlier than the numbered stamps. Others say that he still did some he didn’t number later on, and those were mostly sold to a local trade. Ellis’ stamps were not number marked.

Font Size – Ray Hackbarth used one size font for the “R Hackbarth Phoenix Ariz” and a larger font for the word “Stainless”. Ellis Barnes used the same size font for all three lines. Often times the word “stainless” on the original Ray Hackbarth stamps was struck in lighter than the rest of the marking, but not always. The Ellis Barnes markings tended to be consistent depth top to bottom.

Tick Marks – Ellis Barnes had small dots or tick marks at the beginning and end of each line of font. Ray Hackbarth did not have any marks.​​​​​​

I hope this has been somewhat helpful to clear up confusion on these stamps.

-            Bruce