SIC 3953 Marking Devices

SIC 3953

This category covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing stencils for use in painting or marking; or in the production of steel letters and figures, rubber and metal hand-stamps, dies, and seals. Establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing felt tip markers are covered in SIC 3951: Pens, Mechanical Pencils, and Parts.

NAICS CODE(S)

339943

Marking Device Manufacturing

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 466 establishments operated in this category for part or all of 2004. Industry-wide employment totaled approximately 5,754 workers receiving a payroll of more than $180 million. Companies in this industry tended to be smaller in size with about 82 percent employing less than 20 workers. The Annual Survey of Manufactures reported that overall shipments for the industry were valued at nearly $481 million in 2005. Additionally, for the industry (also including the manufacturing of pen and mechanical pencils, lead pencils and art goods, and carbon paper and inked ribbons) a combined total of 11,311 employees worked in production in 2005, putting in nearly 23 million hours to earn wages of more than $332 million.

The 2005 leader was Deluxe Corp. of Shoreview, Minnesota, with sales of $1.7 billion and 8,720 employees. In second place was Intertape Polymer Group of Columbia, South Carolina, with $701 million in 2005 sales and 2,600 employees. Rounding out the top three overall leaders was Torrance, California-based Shachihata Incorporated USA with 2005 sales of $700 million and 900 employees.

The design for several of the devices in this category date from antiquity and have changed very little over the centuries, even though technological innovations have made a key difference in some cases. The introduction of the mass-production automobile assembly line, for instance, led to notable advances in die-casting technology and to the very precise formation of even the tiniest metal parts.

The introduction of stenciling has been dated to eighth century China, and this technique of reproducing designs has long been deemed well-suited for metal or cardboard cuts to produce simple shapes. Only with the introduction of silk-screen printing, however, was it possible to overcome the inherent limitations of stencils' great simplicity. The stencil, for instance, does not permit the reproduction of one design enclosing another (as in the case of a figure eight), unless it is halved to...

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