Decal sets

[goxu1]

Happy New Year to you all up there. I hope this next one is better than the last two.

Re decal sets. I don't know how I ended up with 2 sets , but I've got one from TM and one from Maple Hunter Decals
When looking at the 2 sets there are small differences in the font and actual wording
Some have "printed in USA" and others don't
So , just wondering which set is meant to be more authentic?

[Bob McCarty]

Paul, If you go to TM's site, click on decals, then decal information (top middle of the page), then decal fonts (top right of the page). I think you'll see that there were many variations that were all correct. It might be almost impossible to determine if there is a "correct" font and style as the decals came from different sources. Happy New Year to our down under friends.

[Jim Becker]

Most IH decals were printed by the Meyercord Company of Chicago. Here is a little article on Meyercord from Time Magazine in 1952:
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber ... 16,00.html

Going back to the early days of IH, the originals were water transfer decals. Eventually, stickers were used. I don't know just when, but probably after your '57 was built. All you can get now are stickers.

Before the days of computerized printing, there were no "standard fonts". The closest was probably what came out of a linotype machine. The font of an IH decal was whatever the draftsman created when the individual drawing was made. Today, the easy way to make a sticker is to find a font that looks about right and use it. So you find variations depending on who made up the preplacement sticker. Then you find the suppliers that try to please the customer, the customer is often the first guy that contacted them about a particular sticker. Once they come up with a sticker that guy accepts, they print a big stack of them and everyone that follows gets the same thing.

I don't think that any original decals said "Printed on the USA". That was probably added to humor tractor restorers, of maybe was a policy of the reproduction printer. Heck, IH didn't even routinely put "made in USA" labels on until 1949 (for domestic sales).

All considered, I think TM has tried as hard or harder than anyone else to be authentic in their stickers. As Bob suggested, TM has a lot of pictures for reference that you should find helpful.