Recent Rabbit Holes 2

5/18/25 - Vintage Label Makers.

Most people are charmed by embossed labels. Those are the kind that don't require ink or even batteries to create. Old school, stylized, tactile, and classically smart engineering.

A few years ago, I bought a contemporary Dymo Embossing Label Maker. Mind you, Dymo essentially invented the label maker. So I bought one from them in like 2021 for $10. It broke about a year or two later. In 2024, I decided I missed having one, so I bought another one. By then, the price had been raised to something like $15.

That label maker broke in less than 3 months.

At this point, I'm pissed because it feels like In 2025, we can literally do anything, but somehow we can't just have nice, quality items. Everything is made like shite now. How did the brand who invented label makers sell me a label maker that brought practically overnight? How is there no embossing label maker manufactured in 2025 that isn't made from the world's cheapest plastic? I find it upsetting as fuck and view it as a disturbing reflection of the extent to which people have to go out of their way or break the bank to have nice things that are made to last. We are somehow on the brink of entering an era in which it is countercultural to take the time necessary and do the research needed to acquire items that won't break after 4 uses.

So anyway, this all led me down the rabbit hole of looking for vintage embossing label makers that would not break immediately. I came across these two incredible models, both produced before the 80s boom of plastic products. The Scotch EA-400 (to the right) was made in May of 1979. The Dymo 1570 (to the left) was produced between the 60s and 70s, but I have not learned the production year of mine yet. Both have separately been called the "Cadillac[s] of Label Makers" by contemporary users. Doing my research, there is an insane number of not just Dymo label maker models, but vintage label makers in general. Most are beautifully constructed with creative almost futuristic or sci-fi like mid-century modern designs. The two I have look like guns from Star Trek or something (I've never seen Star Trek).

While I'm appreciative that I was able to procure two awesome label makers that will probably outlive me and be passed down to my grandkids, I can't help but– as a result of acquiring these– deeply long for a time that I never lived in. I can't help but desire to live in a world where craftsmanship and experimentation could coincide to become greater than capitalism itself...And maybe it wasn't greater. Maybe they believed at the time that craftsmanship would only fuel capitalism. But we no longer live in a time where even that is viable.

There was a time when people who lived in poverty had clothes that they could wear for decades without buying new ones because the ones they had were so well made or at least well-mended and worth mending. Today, people buy shirts online that arrive smelling like formaldehyde and turn to dust after one machine wash. It's the best new clothes that some people can afford. Hence why I pretty much only thrift or buy everything (including these label makers) from eBay.

It all simply leaves me wishing that we– the middle and lower class public, could easy have access to nice, well-made things. This is not a new feeling to me, but goddamn did the randomly and astonishingly exceptional quality of two simple label makers make me wish to time travel.