Most people don’t realize it, but the self inking rubber stamp is a relatively new product, having come on the market really only a few decades ago.  Before that, all rubber stamps were hand stamps and had to be used with a pad.  What most people don’t know is how the self inking stamps work.  Actually, a self inking rubber stamp, say from Ideal or Trodat….actually has a small inner stamp pad.  When the stamp is stamped, the outer mechanism slides down and up, and in the process, the stamp die flips up, impacts the inner stamp pad with just enough force to get ink for one impression, and then in the wink of an eye flips back down and transfers the ink to the paper.

Most of these handy products, and it is absolutely true of both the Ideal and Trodat self inking rubber stamps that we sell at the Rubber Stamp Champ online everyday for lower prices than anywhere else, both can be re inked with actual drops of water based ink being applied to the inner pad, and they can also easily be affixed with a new inner pad in convenient little cartridges that just snap in and replace the old pad which can be popped out.