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These numbers were generally used to identify the miner's lamp, payroll and life check number. Also called a tally check; tags were used to identify a variety of things – a miner's personal lamp, payroll, attached to ore carts to production could be credited or life check on a tag board to identify who was underground in a mine and had not returned to surface.

The larger ones are from the Extension Mine (probably Extension Colliery, also Canadian Collieries, Nanaimo area); the smaller ones came from Granby Mine at Cassidy, circa 1920's. The checks were used by contract miners to identify each car of coal loaded. Fastened by miner to his car, removed and recorded when the car was dumped at the surface. Most checks were double with one tag being inside and the other hanging through a hole in the car. These tags also made of lead, leather and brass. The numbers are miner's payroll, life-check, and lamp number.