Seton Identification Products is a supplier of safety, labeling and signage products based in Buffalo, NY. Seton manufactures and distributes workplace safety equipment, facility marking applications, and traffic & parking signage, as well as warehouse and facility security products. It sells 57,000 products and has subsidiaries in 14 countries. It is a subsidiary of Brady Corporation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Seton was founded in 1956 as the Seton Name Plate Corporation in New Haven by Fenmore R. Seton.[1] While still in the Air Force, in free time, Seton and his wife Phyllis started a part-time mail order business from their home, specializing in personalized Christmas cards for individuals with the surname 'Smith'. To meet the demand for their product, the Setons purchased a small table-top hot-stamping machine.[2] In 1952, they purchased an attachment for their stamping machine to make doorbell nameplates. They went on to produce display boards for local hardware stores. In 1954, the service manager of a large Carrier Air Conditioning contractor in New Haven noticed one of the Setons' display boards and requested that they produce some specialized nameplates for his company.[1] [3]
By 1962, the company was handling a six-figure government order.[2] The nameplate business grew rapidly, and Seton added another line, mail-order sales of industrial products. These products included pipe markers, safety signs, property identification tags, emblems, and truck signs. Seton became a specialist in a field known today as "business-to-business direct marketing".[4]
In 1967, after years of reliance on flyers as their main source of marketing and advertising, the company published its first catalog, mailed to over 110,000 prospects.[4] By the 1970s, annual sales were around $5 million, with 20–25% margins.[1] By 1974, the company's mailing list had grown to over one million, and the catalog boasted that Seton offered "America's most complete line of signs, decals, plaques, trophies, tags and labels."[4]
W.H. Brady bought Seton in 1981 when Fenmore Seton retired,[5] and in 1983 the company moved to a new 85000square feet plant in Branford.[1] By 1988, Seton's catalog mailings rose to 8 million, and sales in 2002 were $160 million.[1] Fenmore Seton died in 2003, aged 85.[6] Phyllis Seton died on August 8, 2019, at the age of 98.[7]
In 2013, Brady announced the closure of the Branford plant.[8]