I realize that this is a bit of an offbeat question, but here we go......

Are the items in the photo below railroad related? They are numbered brass tags, about 1 1/2" in diameter. They were donated to a historical society that I am associated with. The donor indicated that they came out of a Colorado & Southern caboose that she purchased 30+ years ago and believes them to be "railroad luggage tags". Does this sound reasonable and/or can anyone out there shed some light on these?

Thanks

Jason Midyette

Sounds plausable, though I don't know for sure, not being familiar with the C&S. My first reaction though was that they could also be tool check tags, since none of them are designated "local" (so baggage doesn't leave the home road.)

That kind of tag is still available from McMaster-Carr.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#brass-tags/=mzast7

As Tavor notes, they could be tool tags. McMaster also suggests that they may be used for identifying valves, etc..

If the previous owner says they were from a railroad, they probably were. However, they are not particularly rare or hard to get.

Didn't miners use to use # tags when they went into the mine? If the # tag wasn't on the board they were in the mine and hung it back up when they came back topside?

Very commonly used to ID valves, in piping systems. When my company did sprinkler and process heating piping, we had boxes of these. The numbers correlate to a "Valve Schedule" (chart).

Railroad-related "artifact" in the same manner that a Snap-On screwdriver used by a CSX machinist at Cumberland in 2004 is an "artifact". In my opinionated opinion.

Howard P.

Back in 1969 my summer job was gandy dancing for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie. Twelve college kids, an Italian foreman, one old black guy, a mountain of new ties and one yard that was badly in need of having them installed. Each of us was issued a numbered brass identification tag just like those in the photo, which was how the P&LE kept track of who was who. Doubtless, it was a holdover from the days when many low level railroad employees were illiterate and/or didn’t speak English.

The brass tags that I have seen for tool checkout or baggage have had the railroad's name or initials on them somewhere. I have seen both round and square ones. I have sometimes seen unmarked ones mixed in with marked ones, to be implying they bought the unmarked ones later on after many of the originals were lost.

I have also seen some that were marked for railroad YMCA's as well.

Re the mine check--yes, and that's what they looked like. At most mines, there was a board with a hook for each set of checks (in handloading days) or check (for hourly workers.) When miners went in, they pulled their tag(s) from the hook. Later, when the mine furnished electric cap lamps, the lamp man pulled their check from the hook and returned it once the lamp was back in. In case of emergency, a glance at the board showed who was and who wasn't at work.

This is also why the lamp house is not supposed to be within blast range of the portal, so the check board won't be destroyed.

In handloading days, each pair of miners, along with any boys they'd taken in with them, alternated hanging their brass tags on loaded cars so they were paid about equally for their work.

realize that this is a bit of an offbeat question, but here we go......

Not at all. Railroads were more than locomotives, rolling stock and tracks, a fact that is all, too easily forgotten.

It might be an interesting interpretive project to show the complicated business of railroading, far-flung enterprises with in some cases thousands of employees engaged in such disparate functions as cooking and running the locomotive, were run financially with nothing more than mechanical adding machines and Hollerith card readers, and engineered with slide rules and T-squares.

And of course, a myriad of small and simple other tools like tags like these, which may not be, but resemble equipment check tags that ensured employee accountabililty.

The company I used to work for back in the 80's was a large manufacturing plant - metal fabrication - and they had those round tags on virtually every fixed asset in the plant - sometimes wired on, sometimes riveted on. Virtually indestructible. All the tooling and machinery was "brass tagged" too and the "brass tag number" had to be reported anytime any labor or material was used on an asset.

So they could be very multipurpose in nature.

You are about to undertake the restoration of a steam locomotive. It will take several years. At mid point, you will have a large pile of parts, large and small. How do you keep track of them? Wire one of those tags onto it! And, keep a record of what each one is, where it was located, and maybe even photos, before and after removal, and where it was stored.

This is especially important in volunteer organizations, where, a few years after things started, the guys who started the project aren't around any more, or their memories fade.

I wish I (and people who started the job in 1990) had done that with the engine I'm working on. Someone told me to use the brass tags, but I figured they were too expensive. I also figured paper tags wouldn't last, so I tried Tyvec tags. They were better than paper, but they still aren't as good as the brass ones.

Historically, they might not have been used for this purpose by the railroads (everyone who worked in the roundhouse knew where all the parts went!!), but I think this is a good use for them in restorations.

Aluminum tags cost about half as much as brass ones.

Foresters often use numbered aluminum tags (with aluminum nails) to identify trees which must be re-measured many years in the future. If the tree is inadvertently harvested before remeasurement, the aluminum tags and nails do not damage the saws.

Loggers around here use aluminum tags, too. Re the brass ones, I've had people show me one and swear it must have been from #3 Mine because that's what theirs looked like...so did pretty much everybody's! I've seen them on switch keys, storeroom keys ,etc., and the matching locks are usually engraved with the same number somewhere. Notice how sharp the lettering is? It's kind of inspiring to see the finish that went into even something commonplace back then.

Labeling, in general, is an even better idea if you're working on two similar objects. We were working on air conditioners a couple of summers ago and managed to swap two all but identical remotes without knowing it. Neither unit would work, we had no clue why, and we almost took them apart again before son said "Hm, I wonder if..." Since then, the remotes are all labeled.
Sometimes it's a matter of leaving existing labels in place. I know my front door was the agent's office door at the Wheeling B&O station because the salvager who took it out left the Chessie-era "Agent's Office" plaque on it. When I paid him the $15 for it, he also gave me a Sentinel page with a picture of the door in service and a description of trhe original color. (Unfortunately, I couldn't get the layers of sickly green paint off without damaging the original red, which seems to have worn very thin.)

boxcar seal tags

They look like tool crib tags with employee numbers on them.
When we restored 1522 we had a huge sack full of blank ones and when we took something off, we stamped a tag and wired it onto the part. Worked well.