Company stamp

In pre-war Szczecin, every self-respecting company was equipped with company stamps and sometimes letterheads, decorated with small engravings depicting the company's headquarters or logo, or visual representations of the city. An example of such office equipment is a stamp plunger in the collection of the Szczecin History Museum, with which the term Kustos was stamped. It was found in one of the buildings taken over by the current National Museum in Szczecin after the war. It was therefore most likely commissioned by one of Szczecin's pre-war museums. There is also an inscription on the round head of the piston handle: GEBRUDER FOBKE PARADEPL. 31 STETTIN, representing a kind of manufacturer's trademark. The Fobke brothers were probably Gustav and Emil, who were also recorded by the Szczecin address books under private addresses. As a company, they produced printing plates, stencils, signs and stamps. They also engaged in engraving and woodcutting, as evidenced by the information added next to their names and addresses: Graveur and Xsylograph, but also engravings from the end of the 19th century depicting the Marian Gymnasium and the Municipal Gymnasium, the authorship of which is attributed to Emil. The Fobke Brothers' establishment was located from 1902 at number 30 and then 31 on Paradeplatz (now Niepodległości Avenue). Before the war, this was one of the most representative streets in Szczecin. Located on the site of the decommissioned city fortifications, it became a wide walking avenue in the early 19th century, lined with trees along both sides. There were grand buildings such as the Palace of the Pomeranian Lands and the Royal Prussian Post Office building, merchant houses and a number of tenement houses with service premises. Although the building numbered 31 was destroyed as a result of the war, the building that housed the original Fobke brothers' company, numbered 30, has survived to this day. Małgorzata Peszko