Price tags and hang tags are essential to any merchant class system. They provide information, but also trigger the consumption instincts of the consuming mass. These tags have an inherent beauty for collectors of popular, ephemeral culture. Karl Marx spoke of commodity fetishism. These tags—for all manner of products—are fetishized artifacts, and also the amuse bouches that whet the appetite for (and names the price of) the main course in the feast of collecting.
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