Dog Tag History » More Dog Tag History

More Dog Tag History

Old wives' tales and other stories die slowly. The "tooth notch" fairy tale has persisted for all these years and I don’t think it will ever go away. We present this information to show the truth, that the notch in the tag was not a "tooth notch." I have had many people swear that it was, and that in fact, they saw the tags shoved into some poor dead bastard's mouth. I don't believe any of these stories, but they just will not go away.

The Model 70 was used to imprint forms using the soldier's identification tag (dog tag). It could be used to imprint the soldier's name and number only; or the name and address of the person to be notified in case of emergency or the entire five lines on the tag.

The notch on the tag was for proper positioning in the Model 70. See the following paragraph from the instruction sheet we have quoted exactly:

With the Addressograph facing as shown in (figure 2), insert the identification tag between the plate guides and push the tag as far to the right as it will go. The raised characters of the tag must face downward, and the locating notch in the tag must be toward operator.
Addressograph Corp. "Instructions for the Operation of Model 70 Addressograph"

Notice that is says "locating notch" not "tooth notch."