Carburetor tags
Carburetor tags have been made at least from: aluminum, brass, and cardboard (yes Virginia, early Carter tags were red cardboard, guess how long they lasted
)
Rochester's first tags (1949) were brass.
At some time in the mid-1950's, Rochester changed tag material to anodized aluminum. I have NO official document as to EXACTLY when this occurred, but judging from my original tag collection, 1956 seems to be a transition year. In fact, I have some 1956 tags that are brass and some that are anodized aluminum with the same carburetor number. At least in March of 1956, brass was still being used.
Someone came up with the idea to "color code" the anodized aluminum tags, to make installation at the factory easier. At some time a "plant code" a.k.a. "picking code" was implemented.
So each carburetor was assigned a two-character code and a color. When the engine build sheet came down the assembly line, it had boxes for carburetor, distributor, etc. These boxes contained the picking code. The large bins containing these accessories had a large painted board at the front of the bin; guess what color the board was painted. If you guessed the carb tag color, you win the prize. So the carburetor installer would look at the build sheet and come up with a carburetor code. He/she would then find the bin with that code; pull a carburetor from the bin, and check that the tag color matched the board color.
Some of you may have seen Q-Jets (no, not on stovebolts), beginning in 1965 with Chevrolet. In 1966, California smog emission laws took effect. So the round dime-sized tags that were used on Federal carburetors had a small ROUND hole in the center, and the California carburetors had a small SQUARE hole in the center.
As far as reproduction tags:
This is a slippery slope from a legal standpoint. I have the ability to recreate the tags, but won't for ala carte sale. When I was still restoring carburetors, I did reproduce the tag AS A PART OF THE RESTORATION. A discussion with my attorney discouraged me from EVER selling reproduction tags ala carte.
I have looked at a lot of reproduction tags on Ebay. There is a squirrel selling Q-Jets tags that are all the same color, with square holes FOR ALL Q-Jet numbers that had tags. These are correct for only one single California carburetor. While these could be useful for carburetor identification if one has a faulty memory; they certainly would lose the maximum deduction for carburetor if the vehicle were entered into points-judging show.
I have pictured 4 tags: the Carter cardboard, brass, copper (Rochester used this to denote modifications), and aluminum.
If you look at the tags:
Brass produced in May of 1951
Copper produced August of 1967, inspected by inspector number 60, and had an engineering change level of "B"
Aluminum produced October of 1962 and inspected by inspector number 84
Jon
