WI: Early Rubber

From what I can tell - and I'm no expert - the use of rubber in the Old World never really became a major thing until the late 1700s or early 1800s despite Eurasia and Africa having had the potential to access it since Europeans arrived in Central and South America. However, in the New World, it was used in a number of capacities since at least 1600 BC, even to the point of using an early form of processed rubber.

What would the ramifications be of the use of rubber becoming more common in the Old World well before the late 1700s? Would it have any utility in Europe and Asia before industry became a thing? Is it even possible to discover sulphur vulcanization earlier? And if it is, what could vulcanized rubber be used for?

Basically what happens if we figure out rubber in the 1600s, or even the 1500s?
 
A marked decline in STDs.
Seriously though I think that rubber would be used likely as it was later that is to say prosaic rather than exotic. Get some earlier bright type to think hey, I bet there's a thousand ways that something waterproof that is easily shaped and sewn would be handy like making boots, coats, hats, and tarps so people dont get soaked to the bone or stuff doesn't get waterlogged.
Perhaps someone hits upon the idea of putting a bladder into a ball a couple of centuries earlier. The HRE could have fielded a helluva great cup team but beating the Catholic Monarchy would be tough.
 
The problem is that you have to figure out how to add the sulfur and carbon or the heat will let it melt off anything, latex rubber has a low melting point and will melt off cloth without it.
 
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