In the beginning of the fifties a few years before he died Charlie Chaplin got his first self inking stamp and to make it easy for him to remember he was at that time losing his memory he decided to turn it around and turn it into the inking self stamp. This also shows how flexible the English language is because the two ways of saying it imply a different object will be the one that will get ink on it. Clever Charlie for seeing the fun to be had from this.
In the fifties the self inking stamp was a rather new technology and Charlie Chaplin made fun in his movies of all the new technology that was emerging after the Second World War and one of them was his invention of the inking self stamp.
Even though it is very easy to change both ink pad and text plate on a self inking stamp Charlie Chaplin could make it look very difficult. When he showed how to stamp documents with a self inking stamp he managed to stamp everything else but the document he was supposed to stamp. His desk became a complete mess with stamp impressions all over, his fingers became full of ink and he even managed to stamp his chin just below his famous moustache. He went on by trying to remove the ink from his desk and from his face and fingers and then succeeded in more or less ruining the entire house by soaking it in water and soap yet he still had not succeeded in cleaning anything. He had turned the self inking stamp into an inking self stamp!
Such a crazy idea as making fun out of using something as simple as a self inking stamp shows the genius of Charlie Chaplin but it has nothing to do with the real world. The use of the self inking stamp has been a world wide success and perhaps Charlie Chaplin helped it to become this since everybody could see that what he made complicated really was very simple and easy to use and a product that kept the desk, fingers and, most importantly, the stamped documents looking good.
The self inking stamp is today the most used type of rubber stamp all over the world and has a more than 80% market share world wide. It is being produced in many different ways using both plastic and steel as raw materials and making great impressions with either. If made in steel some manufacturers even give a lifetime guarantee. If a metal self inking stamp breaks down the customer gets a new one free of charge.
It is strange to think how a man like Charlie Chaplin, by making fun of the use of an inking self stamp, helped to promote the self inking stamp to become a world wide success.