54 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • OCTOBER 2017 54 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 54 LONGISLANDPRESS.CO M • SEPTEMBER 201-----------TUTU111
WHOLLY MOLI
Arthur Minasy’s
anti-theft clothing tag
In the early 1960s, Woodbury engineer Arthur
Minasy started playing around with designs for
an “article surveillance” device to thwart the
theft of clothing from department stores.
His invention, a clothing tag that triggered an
alarm if someone tried to sneak the item past a
cashier, launched a $40 billion industry that has
helped protect everything from Italian salamis
to Wall Street bonds.
Minasy’s original device measured five inches,
sported a C battery and weighed half a pound,
but tests at area Stern’s department stores proved
its worth – shoplifting declined noticeable at
stores equipped with the devices.
(Although the weight of the tags may have had
something to do with it.)
In 1966, the inventor launched Hauppauge
based Knogo Corp., so named because
someone else had already trademarked No Go.
The company also made magnetic strips that
could be permanently fixed to articles like library
books and hospital linens to prevent theft.
Minasy, who had served in the technical services
branch of the Office of Strategic Services during
World War II – and Sperry and other defense
firms afterwards – doggedly opened branch
operations across Europe, with headquarters in
Belgium.
The 68-year-old inventor died in Brussels in
1994, of pneumonia that followed hip surgery.
The firm soon began feeling the squeeze from
less inventive, but more nimble, competitors,
and Knogo eventually sold off its highly profitable
global business to arch-rival Sensormatic.
In 1997, what was left merged with Minneapolis
based Video Sentry Corp., a maker of video
surveillance equipment.
Minasy’s original electronic wafer is in the
Smithsonian.