Comment by ButlerianJihad

Price tags have been constructed like this since the 1970s. The little gummy paper ones with literal prices stamped onto them. They fragment into about six pieces if you pick at them and try to pull them off an item.

I noticed this straightaway and my mother informed me how bad people would try and swap price tags on items and this was a countermeasure.

Later on, when I owned my own vehicle, it was the common lore that, after applying a new annual registration tag to the license plate, we should go over it with a razor blade, and slice up about six sections on the little sticker, because there were criminals out there who would lift off the registration sticker because it was quite valuable to fraudulently "register" license plates that way and bypass the DMV. Although I never saw this crime actually perpetrated or met anyone who was a victim, I guess I did it myself a few times. Better safe than sorry!