Joseph Cicchetti, the “Inverted Jenny” of sidewalk philately, Friendship

When you start collecting sidewalk stamps, you can bag all of Pittsburgh’s greatest hits in one decent-sized stroll through any neighborhood: Ciriello, Santo, and Spano, Baleno, Scotti, and Pucciarelli. Trust me: you’ll pick these up right away, without even really trying.

Those guys, of course, are just the B-team. If you can make it down any residential block without stepping over a DiBucci–the Elvis, Beatles, and Micheal Jackson of local masonry*–you’ve found a rare, naked block, indeed.

Start to take a few more walks, look at little farther afield, and you’ll get into the hack-lineup album tracks: Didiano, Regan, Langell, and Colucci. These are great pick-ups, but not so unique that a person needs to, you know, lose it over their first Lucente. Relax, kid–you’ll see another.

F. Naccarelli, South Side

Here at the Orbit, we’ve been counting stamps for a couple years now, and we’re down to the deep cuts. These are the serious outtakes, rarities, and B-sides for only the hardest of core collectors. We’re talking live bootlegs sold in the parking lot from the trunk of a LeBaron after the show.

The sidewalk stamps included in today’s post are mason’s markers that we’ve only spotted one–and only one–extant tag for. That doesn’t mean this example is the only one that exists, but with the amount of staring at the pavement we’ve done over the last couple years, we can tell you they’re rare. Enjoy.

Ray Benney General Contracting, Squirrel Hill

Joe Darpli, Friendship

Geo. A. Shepard [photo: Lee Floyd]

ALD, Sharpsburg

Eric Gerber Contracting, Friendship

Castellano (?), Friendship

Vincent Mannella, Friendship

C.H. Hempel, Braddock [photo: Kevin Welker]

James R. Bell, Bellevue

WPA (Works Progress Administration), Sharpsburg

* There are so many varieties of the DiBucci stamp/plaque that co-assistant to the cub reporter Lee Floyd has suggested trying to collect all the permutations. This is a journey we believe even the most dedicated of Orbit readers may not follow us on. That said, there are more ways to measure success than with web analytics, so perhaps we’ll go down that road, err…sidewalk, alone.