These are from Joe Maurath Jr. A big thanks to him. The pic is pretty self-explanitory. These are geniune GE labels from the 80's. One of the 175w MV tags is on my yardblaster and one MH tag is on my OV25's remote ballast box. The rest are tacked to a bulletin board in my basement. (don't worry, i tacked them through the paper backing, not the actual label)
Hey Mike, did Joe ever told you how he got them. It seems real NEMA tags are almost impossible to find in small quantities. I'm satisfied with my fake ones though since they more or less look like the real thing so I guess I'll order those if I need more NEMA tags.
I have no clue. I can't seem to get ahold of Joe M at all lately. The last time i heard from him was over a month ago. I wonder if he could be having computer troubles or something... and yeah your tags look nice! It seems GE was constantly changing the font and color tone very slightly between orders so i guess you really can't get an exact match. For example, the 10s are stretched higher than the 17s and the X1 is a totally different font! The latter is the 70s-80s font while the others are 90s-mid 2000s font. The "McCann Lighting" font is just the slightest different from the the 70s-80s GE font. The numbers have unnoticable differences unless you compare them side-by-side.
Yeah, it seems that they played around with how much they squished the 0 over the years too. I wonder if you would have thought mine were real GE ones if I didn't tell you I had them custom made.
The only way i knew was that the numbers were more bold and a tad wider than what GE used. I was fooled for a couple seconds though. At first i thought they were AEL tags.
GE seemed to be very inconsistant too from what i've seen though pictures and from info passed form Joe M to me. Some numbers were narrower than others. Your 25 looks dead-on to me, though i've never seen the narrow post 80s 25 in person to tell for sure. GE used the "McCann Lighting" style font for all wattages from when they started using tags until somwhere in the 80s, depending on wattage. Then the 10 and 25 were in narrow standard Helvectica for a bit while the others were narrowish then the 10 and 25 became narrowish too. It seems only the HPS 10 was ever wide while both the MV and HPS 25 were wide and the 250W MV tags remained wide. The 5 and 7 were simply bolded helvectica after they discontinued the 70s-80s font from what i saw. i personally like their 70s-80s font best.
It seems GE even went back and fourth between tag fonts too. Joe maurath has some 100W MV M-250R2s from 1989 with both the 70s-80s font and the newer narrow font. The shade of blue seemed to differ too. some were sky blue while others were a little darker. GE had always used a fairly light blue though while ITT/T&B used a really deep blue. I like the color of the deep blue better but it makes the numbers harder to read.
Well, at least mine still look like real NEMA tags in fact maybe you guys should order some if you end up needing extra NEMA tags. I think I used the Electromark tag's colours on mine though.
Yeah you did a good job! I can't seem to get around to getting custom bumper stickers with NEMA tags made. What price range is each tag roughly (if you don't mind me asking). It looks like you can fit 3 tags per sticker?
McCann Lighting tags use the deep blue color but I'm thinking of switching to a lighter blue so they can be read a little easier. Probe MH and MV fixtures are still availble to non-USA customers. They're currently an unlisted option, though i may add them back in to the spec sheets... The MV fixtures are merely MH fixtures with MV tags for 175-1000W. 100W MV is not sold because we have a strict policy against selling "modified" equippement. However, a 100W NEMA tag and lamp can be shipped with a 70W PSMH fixture and instructions on how to disable the ignitor to non-USA customers.
Yeah, I ordered mine from here but any place that makes custom bumper stickers can print them out for you. Anyways the bumper stickers (which can fit 3 tags) costs 5 bucks per sticker but you get a bit of a discount if you order two or more at the same time. I ordered two stickers last time and with shipping that came down to a cost of roughly 2 bucks per NEMA tag. Shipping for you might be cheaper though.
Oh and I put in a second order of NEMA tags on Saturday with some small changes. I changed the corners so that they are square instead of rounded like the first set and I also crammed in some 1" tags in the white space between the three 3" tags. The colour stayed the same though.
My first choice was ordering from a local company but they all wanted a minimum quantity so I decided to order them online instead since the NEMA tags were more or less one off designs.
Interesting but it looks like it will cost a bit to ship labels to Canada from them though. It also seems that our homemade NEMA tags look more and more like the real thing now. I still remember when people here used to draw them by hand.
I've also since cut out the other tags and I used the 17 MV one on my yardblaster. It looks more like a real NEMA head with the tag on it.
LOL wow hand-drawn eh? it's not like NEMA tags are that hard to do on the computer. 3x3 text box, select the background color, type in two black numbers and print.
Oh and do you know if the labels you linked to have a paper or plastic backing, I know some foil labels that are for envelopes and have a paper backing under the foil. The ones I made were vinyl, so it's just like a real NEMA tag .(/gloat )
I like the vinyl versions because they would last a lot longer if you use them outdoors compared to ones with a paper backing. I think the real foil NEMA tags used mylar backings.
The only used NEMA tags I've seen in person is a 70W HPS tag on a M-250R2 door that Darren now has and a 250W HPS 80s GE tag that Joe sent me. The 250W tag is very thick compared to these tags or the 70W one, which was peeling. These tags are about as thin as a piece of paper from a sprial-bound notebook while the 250W tag is considerable thicker like a vinyl bumper sticker.
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GE seemed to be very inconsistant too from what i've seen though pictures and from info passed form Joe M to me. Some numbers were narrower than others. Your 25 looks dead-on to me, though i've never seen the narrow post 80s 25 in person to tell for sure. GE used the "McCann Lighting" style font for all wattages from when they started using tags until somwhere in the 80s, depending on wattage. Then the 10 and 25 were in narrow standard Helvectica for a bit while the others were narrowish then the 10 and 25 became narrowish too. It seems only the HPS 10 was ever wide while both the MV and HPS 25 were wide and the 250W MV tags remained wide. The 5 and 7 were simply bolded helvectica after they discontinued the 70s-80s font from what i saw. i personally like their 70s-80s font best.
It seems GE even went back and fourth between tag fonts too. Joe maurath has some 100W MV M-250R2s from 1989 with both the 70s-80s font and the newer narrow font. The shade of blue seemed to differ too. some were sky blue while others were a little darker. GE had always used a fairly light blue though while ITT/T&B used a really deep blue. I like the color of the deep blue better but it makes the numbers harder to read.
McCann Lighting tags use the deep blue color but I'm thinking of switching to a lighter blue so they can be read a little easier. Probe MH and MV fixtures are still availble to non-USA customers. They're currently an unlisted option, though i may add them back in to the spec sheets... The MV fixtures are merely MH fixtures with MV tags for 175-1000W. 100W MV is not sold because we have a strict policy against selling "modified" equippement.
Oh and I put in a second order of NEMA tags on Saturday with some small changes. I changed the corners so that they are square instead of rounded like the first set and I also crammed in some 1" tags in the white space between the three 3" tags. The colour stayed the same though.
this would work for any NEMA tags. It's weatherproof gloss white for ink jet printers. they have the same thing in laser if you have one of those...
this one is gold foil for ink jet printers. it's not mentioned as weatherproof so I guess something like clear enamel spraypaint could be applied if you want to ensure weather resistance.
there's silver too. that could be useful when copying Westie and Cooper/Crouse-Hinds NEMA tags since both the HPS and MV tags were foil. When Mass electric used FCO T&B 313s in 100 MV (not a cataloged item), the lights had foil tags with a narrow boldface font similar to "Impact". I got a picture of one when i went to Joe's in July.
I've also since cut out the other tags and I used the 17 MV one on my yardblaster. It looks more like a real NEMA head with the tag on it.
Oh and do you know if the labels you linked to have a paper or plastic backing, I know some foil labels that are for envelopes and have a paper backing under the foil. The ones I made were vinyl, so it's just like a real NEMA tag .(/gloat
I'm not sure if it's a paper backing or not. They have a vinyl version they sell too...
I like the vinyl versions because they would last a lot longer if you use them outdoors compared to ones with a paper backing. I think the real foil NEMA tags used mylar backings.