Kimball sales tag
A Marston's Kimball sales tag, a precursor of the barcode, c. 1950s.

A Kimball tag was a cardboard tag that included both human and machine-readable data to support punched card processing.[1] A Kimball tag was an early form of stock control label that, like its later successor the barcode, supported back office data processing functions. They were predominantly used by the retail clothing fashion industry.

Tagging guns which use plastic toggles to attach price tags to clothing are still known as Kimball guns (or the corruption, kimble guns), although the tags now use bar codes.

SOHO Collection