[njsteve]

NICB is the National Insurance Crime Bureau. They have microfiche shipping records from most but not all of the assembly plants going back to the early 1900's. There is no "report" per se, really it is a one page document that shows that a particular VIN was shipped to a particular dealer code on a specific date.

The main use for these records is for vehicle fraud - if someone makes up a new VIN tag and the police suspect something, they can contact NICB and they will search that VIN to see if it ever existed. For example if you "find" a previously unlocated 71 hemicuda convertible and sell it for a couple million dollars and then there is a lawsuit over whether it's real or not - the VIN can be searched and if the engine code is different in the NICB records, that will prove the car had a fake VIN recently made for it. For example: BS27R1B100000 (hemi) versus BS27N1B100000 (383).

The real use if for much more modern cars in chop shop/auto theft investigations. There is a numerical "check digit" in post 1980's car VINs that is created by some crazy algorithym that chop shoppers don't have, so if they try to make a new VIN tag for a $250,000 Mercedes they are shipping overseas, the officials will check the VIN against NICB records and if the numbers don't match, there is a problem.

The unintended value to collectors in the NICB records is that you can learn what dealership a car was originally shipped to, such as Yenko, Baldwin, etc.

Unfortunately, the records are not available to the general public. It would actually be a goldmine to NICB if they would only see the light. Almost like Pontiac Historical Services selling the microfiche Pontiac invoice copies. I think a great deal of people would pay $50, $100, etc., to know what dealer their car came from originally, especially if it was thought to be from a specialty dealership.