Re: Restamping blocks??????????????
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: mr 707</div><div class="ubbcode-body">past owner history usually smoke out counterfits. Dont ever trust a protecto plate. Too many original(( boxes of them)) ones left over from out of business dealers. Theirs a guy in florida who sells them every day </div></div>
Not just protect-o-plates. Repro VIN tags are supposed to be illegal, but you can buy them all day long regardless, along with the rosette rivets.
Eyewitness testimony from back in the day is far from foolproof, either. I frequently see and hear the comment "Well, it's been like this since the late 70's - early 80s, and nobody was faking them back then." I don't think that's true. I've heard numerous stories about a guy from Oklahoma who, back in the early 80s, would strip parts including VIN and trim tags off musclecars down south and bring them up here to sell. While he was here, he would locate and strip cars here and sell the pieces back in Oklahoma. Off the top of my head, over the past twenty years I've probably drug thirty or more cars out of junkyards/fields/etc. that didn't have a single identifying number left on them, anywhere. And I've seen and not bought probably three times that many.
Some of those didn't make sense in that they weren't all that desirable (a 383, column auto 68 Road Runner, for example). Others, such as the 68 Hemi Super Bee, 66 L78 Chevelle and the silver 429 CJ 4-speed 71 Mach 1? I guarantee the numbers from those cars are resting comfortably attached to base Coronet, Malibu, or Mustang in somebody's garage, probably with the "numbers matching" block in the cradle.
Faking musclecars has been big business for a long time, and I can't even imagine how many non-numbers and just outright fake cars there must be out there. Some are easily detectable; I'd bet money there are many that are practically invisible without a down-to-bare-metal inspection.
I finally reached the point where I approached every car like it was fake unless evidence to the contrary was overwhelming. Guilty until proven innocent. Sucks for the hobby, but what can you do about it?
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