Ridout Plastics Company Inc

My family entered plastics distribution and fabrication in 1968. Dad listened to the guy in "The Graduate" and bought in. I was a teen with access to a shop filled with Plexiglas® Acrylic sheets, Lexan®, Plastic Sheets & Fiberglass sheet. Add UHMW, PTFE, plastic glue, Multiwall polycarbonate, Seaboard, architectural and engineering plastics. 40 years later I educate our team on new materials and processes - to customers worldwide. It’s new every day. I wonder sometimes if the ancestral beginnings of our plastics company, that being ePlastics.com aka Ridout Plastics Company Inc, are more deeply rooted than any others. Ridout Plastics is a contender.... founded in 1914 as the Rench Company, and the first plastic we sold was little plastic numbers and letters that were used on grocery store shelves AND Customer Call Numbers - 1 through 50 made from .030 white vinyl. DO you remember those? That would be late teens or early 1920's most likely. My grandfather, one of San Diego's original grocers, did business with the Rench Company. In fact, my father remembers the store - with the earliest memories from the late 20's. (My grandfather came here in 1910). We started selling Plexiglas acrylic sheet sometime after it was invented - best I can tell. The makers of Plexiglas didn't log who sold their product until about 1970. The earliest "proven" transaction was some clear and colored acrylic sheets used in a Buck Knife handle from the early 40's. See email below... When my dad bought the company in 1967, we were still selling the Call Numbers and shelving numbers.... and Buck Knives is STILL a customer today OVER 70 YEARS after their first purchase! Here's where this all started: Ridout Plastics was the only plastics company in San Diego until around 1971 – so it’s not a stretch to say we sold you Lucite in the 40’s. That’s actually the oldest transaction anyone can document! Back then, we were located in Hillcrest on 4th avenue near Robinson. Looking forward to 2014 - 100 years of selling plastics? Holy Smoke!