Treasury Tags

A treasury tag^[1] or India tag^[2] is an item of stationery used to fasten sheets of paper together or to a folder. It consists of a short length of string, with metal or plastic cross-pieces at each end that are orthogonal to the string. They are threaded through holes in paper or card made with a hole punch or lawyers bodkin or electric drill, and the cross-pieces are sufficiently wide as to not slip back through the holes.^[3]

The names Treasury tag and India tag are first found on record in a list of stationery items published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) in 1912, and, both being capitalised, probably refer to HM Treasury and the India Office.^[4][5] While the terms are now equivalent, a Treasury tag was originally a lace with a sharp metal tag at one end, which could be threaded through the holes in a stack of documents or cards and inserted into a corresponding tag at the other end, thus forming a loop and binding the documents. The tags, in that case, were in line with the string, similar to aglets on a shoelace.