National Sticker Day on January 13th recognizes all the ways stickers brighten up a page or send a special message. The day celebrates all things stickers, from the custom printing of them to sharing stickers. Every sticker has a story.
- 300 BC – The earliest known ‘stickers’ were used in marketplaces for product prices on produce
- 1837 – Prepaid Postage stamps called the Penny Black are introduced in the U.K., with a ‘glutinous wash’ on the backside of the stamp.
- 1880s – Historians credit the European merchants in the 1880s as the first to stick labels to their products, to promote their goods and wares to passersby.
- 1900s – By the 1900s a sticker-specific paste had been developed and was widely used, most notably on stamps, which dried and then reapplied when moistened.
- 1928 – Most frequently, a “bumper sticker” in this time was metal or cardboard wired to the car
- 1935 – R. Stanton Avery, a rags-to-riches entrepreneur created the first commercially feasible self-sticking, peel-off labels and founded what is now Avery Dennison Corp. to manufacture and market them worldwide. Invented in 1935, launching a new company and a new industry. These innovative products were manufactured in a 100-square-foot rented loft space in Los Angeles.
- 1946 – The First Bumper Stickers Promoted Tourist Attractions. Back in 1946, Forest Gill, a screen printer from Kansas, invented the world’s first bumper sticker. Tourist attractions were quick to realize the advertising potential of using cars as moving billboards. Soon bumper stickers became popular souvenirs for car owners all around America.
- 1952 – The first real use of the bumper sticker in a political campaign occurs in the 1952 Eisenhower -vs- Stevenson election.
- 1956 – The I Like Ike campaign once again uses bumper stickers, and so does every presidential campaign since.
- 1959 – The ‘Hello My Name Is’ Sticker Was First Introduced in 1959.
- 1960s – Topps releases Wacky Packs – their first collectible packs of trading cards and stickers
- 1990s – Specialty stickers for movies, TV shows, and fads like Beanie Babies, soared to popularity.
- 1991 – Baker v. Glover in Alabama and Cunningham v. State in Georgia ruled that free speech applies to bumper stickers – although the debate continues.
- 2016 – The record for the world’s largest sticker ball is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2016. The ball was created in honor of National Sticker Day, ended up weighing over 230 pounds, and was more than 8 feet around.
- These savvy, pre-industrial entrepreneurs used a gum paste to get the labels to adhere and, well, stick: hence “stickers.”
- World’s Largest Collection of Stickers Has 102,317 Pieces. Indian sticker collector and artist Nidhi Bansal. Bansal is the sole owner of the largest sticker collection in the world.
- Fruit Stickers Are the Same All Around the World. PLU is an acronym for ‘product look up’.
- Fruit stickers are edible. Eating fruit stickers won’t hurt you. The sticker is not harmful but will just pass right through your body.
- Before the invention of the automobile, business owners would communicate to the public by printing their advertisements on horsefly nets.
- The ‘I Voted’ Sticker Was Invented by Realtors…or was it? At least that is what The Phoenix Association of Realtors claims. The realtors say they came up with the “I Voted Today” sticker in 1985. But other sources claim that an article in the Miami Herald from 1982 told the story about small businesses in Fort Lauderdale that offered discounts to customers who were wearing ‘I Voted’ decals.
- In Europe, drivers with oval bumper stickers must have up to three letter codes to distinguish country origin.
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