Tag Toppers Available For Your Business, Car Club Or Event...

I have been collecting license plate tag toppers for close to forty years, and have more than 200 different Tag Toppers in my collection. If you have read my other entry on Tag Toppers you know that I have reproduced some of the original design Tag Toppers with the Fifth Avenue logo for use on the Great Race cars. I also offer them to customers who what an original design auto advertising accessory to display on their antique vehicle. My current 2018 design features a reflectorized background, so it shows up at night.

Meanwhile...Here are a few of my originals....

Example of an early Tag Topper from the late 1940's.



This One Has Some Well Detailed Graphics...



Tag Toppers Came In All Shapes And Sizes...



This One Has Lots Of Detail And Is Porcelain... A Keeper.
                    

Example Of An Early "Downer" Tag Topper

 

This one was designed to go behind the chrome bezel of the trunk handle.

Tag Toppers are still a very effective way to advertise as I found out in 1993 when the car I sponsored in the Great Race won the Great Race Sportsman class and the driver Howard Sharp earned a 10 minute interview on national television.



    My first Tag Topper Design That Ended up on ESPN TV.

Howard Sharp the car owner did a sit down interview in front of his car with an ESPN reporter, and my tag topper was proudly on display attached to the front license plate bracket of his 1929 Dodge Sport Roadster, with my business name and phone number proudly on display! I got free advertising on national TV for ten minutes, and all I had invested was the cost of that tag topper. As I was watching I was thinking to my self... that tag topper was a dang good investment!



Howard now enters this 1915 Hudson in the Great Race with is son Douglas. Howard went on to win the Great Race twice more, in 2011 and again in 2015. I have sponsored Howard in the Great Race every year for more than 25 years and we have become good friends.

  

The Willys Overland Jeepster Club designed these and each of their 400 members in good standing got one in honor of the clubs 50th anniversary.

I often get asked if I can make custom Tag Toppers for car clubs, other businesses, and special events. The answer is yes, and have been making them off and on for about ten years but have not formally offered the service. But I am getting enough requests that I decided to explain the process and outline the options so if you want to have some made you will have some idea what is involved.

First up is the blanks. They are made of 20 thousandths thick aluminum (same thickness as an interstate road sign) so they are very durable and they will not rust.

As for the colors... you can use most any combination of up to five different ink colors, in addition to any background color so you could end up with six different colors  on a Tag Topper.  My current Tag Topper has 4 colors, Green, White, Red, Black, and the background color of yellow for a total of five colors.

Along with the colors you can screen the background to lighten a color to highlight a detail. The light green color in the background of my logo, is the same dark green color behind my telephone number. It has simple been screen down to thirty percent to give my logo some depth.  The black is also screened for the grill and front bumper.

Reverse type is also available, which is what I have done on the Fifth Avenue Tag Topper to draw attention to the telephone number.

Bleed to the edge... simply means that the background color can be printed out to the very edge of the Tag Topper and a non print boarder area is not necessary.



An example of reverse lettering on an early Tag Topper



Some Tag Toppers Were Even Embossed...

We can add most any logo or graphic along with most any lettering style. A lesson from the billboard company... simple is good and if you select a light colored background such as yellow or white, you should select a dark color of ink such as a black, dark brown, red or dark green. The better the contrast the more eye catching it will be.

We also offer a reflectorized background just like a modern road sign so your tag topper will show up at night. The Fifth Avenue Tag Topper examples shown at the top of the page are reflectorized.

Think about road signs, a stop sign for example, red background, white lettering. the colors catch your eyes and the message is easy to read from a distance. And once you have seen it you immediately recognize it again.



This is an example of a well designed Tag Topper. Notice the bright contrasting colors, the simple message and the logo. This one is easy to read from a distance and it is very eye catching!

The billboard people say an average driver has just 7 seconds to read an entire billboard message at 60 mph. that is why most billboards have a short simple message and a graphic to catch your eye.

The advantage to a Tag Topper is that while it is smaller in size than a billboard it will likely be in front of the car following you for a lot longer than seven seconds. And because antique vehicles tend to travel slower than their modern counterparts, you pretty much have a captive audience.

         

Uppers and Downers...refers to the mounting of the Tag Topper, it can be mounted to the top of a license plate or license plate bracket such as the one on a gravel pan behind the front bumper or the tag topper can be designed to mount hanging down such as on the headlight bar of a Model A Ford.



I use Tag Toppers to identify the cars I have prepared for the Great Race. This one is on a 1936 Ford police car.

A tag topper will usually mount to the front of modern cars and trucks, either as uppers or downers.

All of the ink used on Fifth Avenue Tag Toppers is UV resistant and fade resistant and is the same ink they use on interstate road signs.

That means you can power wash your tag topper at the car wash to get the bugs off without worrying about the ink coming off with it. All of the Fifth Avenue Tag Toppers have passed the Kansas June Bug Test... where you hit a Kansas June bug a 70 mph and there is no damage your tag topper. Sorry...we can't same the same for the June bug.

And last but not least the Fifth Avenue Tag Toppers are made in the USA by the same company that was established in 1946 to make what else...Tag Toppers identifying volunteer fire department members. That same company today, makes all kinds of graphics for fire trucks, ambulances, and rescue vehicles, police cars and the like.

They have kept up with technology and that is why we are able to offer multi-colored Tag Toppers, although they did not apply that technology to Tag Toppers until I showed up on their doorstep. They mainly use the multi-colored graphics on the firetruck, ambulance, and rescue vehicle graphic projects. I was happy to expand their horizons.

I worked in graphic arts for 20 years before I started Fifth Avenue, so I am able to design and layout all of my own books, catalogs, and advertising. I knew how to design tag toppers but I wanted authentic ones from a company who was established when tag toppers were popular. I also wanted them to be USA made.

I finally found a company and we compared notes and we are on the same page. Now here we are some ten years later and I am still making custom tag toppers. I do it for the fun of it, to keep a part of automotive advertising history alive. Some things you do for the fun of it, not the money. And the Tag Toppers I create today will be collectible in later years just as the originals are today.

A Tag Topper is a period correct automotive advertising accessory that is just as effective today as when they were popular in the the 1940's and 1950's.

So if you are interested in a custom tag topper for your business, a car club, or event drop me an email at fifthavegarage@gmail.com and show me what you have in mind. I will help you figure out and a design that will result in a good looking tag topper than you will be proud of. Below are some of the more popular ones I have done in the past.