Thanks Don. I didn't know that little tidbit about the bar codes. So did they use stamp seals from 1966 (no more tax stamps) to the 80s (sticker seals)? And do you know a good reference page for box designs? I have a few sealed vintage decks that I'd like to know more about.
There's some good info at that Cypress Films website.
It was actually in late-1965 that the manufacturer stamp seals came into being - the law was repealed sometime in the fall if I remember correctly, maybe in October. The bar codes seems to have come surprisingly late, but not when you consider that UPC codes were originally developed by a consortium of grocers in concert with IBM. The first item ever scanned was in 1974, and it was a ten-pack case of packets of Wrigley's Gum - and that item now sits on display in the Smithsonian Institute. It apparently wasn't until some years later that the coding system was expanded to cover other retail goods.
(Trivia - there are 1,000,000,000,000 possible combinations of UPC codes. Yes, that's
one trillion. But for the Europeans, that wasn't enough - they use a modified version of UPC codes with an extra digit, creating 10,000,000,000,000 (ten trillion) possible combinations. Wait, do the Brits still call a trillion a "million billion"?
For box designs...that's a bit trickier. Not as many databases exist for them. There are some cues, particularly if the box is still factory-sealed. For example, it wasn't until some time in the 1950s that playing card tuck boxes got cellophane wrapped after being sealed with their tax stamp. Find a pack with the factory wrapper still on it, it's going to be a "post-war" pack, post-war being defined as after World War Two.
I am hardly the authority on this sort of thing. Check with some of our vintage deck collectors.
