Our History

The Dixie Seal & Stamp Company was founded by Arthur Wrigley in 1897. At this time the company made rubber stamps, corporate and notary seals, embossers, and engraved signs. One of the company's first accounts involved making brass stencils which were used on Coca-Cola crates. In 1947, Stephen Schmidt returned from military service in World War II and at the invitation of Wrigley, who was his wife's Uncle, joined the company. Three years later Wrigley retired, and Schmidt purchased Dixie. At the time Dixie Seal & Stamp company was located at 83 Poplar Steet in Atlanta and had only six employees.

After purchasing the company Schmidt began to expand the product base to include metal tags and name plates. In 1955 the company began to manufacture miniature license plates for bicycles, and in conjunction with a sales program by the Lay's Potato Chip Company, yearly production rose to approximately 1,250 tags. The following year Dixie secured a contract with the Kellogg Company to produce 3"x6" license plates for children who responded to a special offer on the back panel of cereal boxes. This program resulted in over one million tags being produced. In 1961 the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce asked the company to produce a standard license plate commemorating the fact that Atlanta's population had reached the one million mark. Initially, Schmidt declined the request since his company had never made plates that size, but fortunately he reconsidered. The result was that Dixie Seal & Stamp Company discovered a new product line--aluminum embossed automobile license plates. In time the company became the nation's largest producer of these plates. Inspired by the success of the commemorative tag project Dixie began to produce novelty auto plates in 1962.

The company moved to 755 North Avenue, NE in 1969. In 1989, Dixie Seal & Stamp Company received an Award of Merit in volume from Specialty Advertising Association International, an organization that represents 4,200 firms involved in the manufacture and sale of advertising specialties. Dixie Seal & Stamp Company won the award again in 1990. As of 1993, the Dixie Seal & Stamp Company boasted 90 employees, a 50,000 square foot complex of buildings, and the production of over 7,000,000 specialty license plates per year. Among these were plates for Disneyland, Walt Disney World, EuroDisney,professional sports teams, schools, colleges, automobile dealerships, and other businesses.