The Mystery of the Hand Stamped VIN

[Lorin]

1 hour ago, Conserv said:

“So....“ he said, desperately trying to buy time, they had this new machine — yes, it was a new machine — to handle the rapidly-increasing volume of BMW car production, but.... it broke down sometimes, forcing them to resort to crude hand-stamped VIN digits.

 

 

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is some of your best work yet, Steve ! Totally believable.

 

So the next question is, were the hand stamped ones in batches or just to fill in when the new machine randomly spit out a dud? 

 

The 1968 stamp was only in the big new machine along with the new fancy font so the hand made ones had to be made with different font and no 1968 digits.

 

Does this make the hand made ones more valuable  like a misprinted postage stamp or coin?

Edited June 29, 2020 by Lorin

[Conserv]

1 hour ago, Lorin said:

 

... Does this make the hand made ones more valuable  like a misprinted postage stamp or coin?

 

I believe you’ve nailed it, Lorin!

 

The rarer cars, those with hand-made VIN stamps, sell at an average premium of 64% over those with machine-stamped VIN’s... ???

 

Shocking, but true! ?

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[tech71]

On 6/26/2020 at 10:25 PM, tahoedon said:

Not sure what the history was, but it was sitting in the back corner of the lot dirty and the weatherstripping all dried out.  Probably had some damage to the drivers side quarter panel because the paint was a slightly different color which I did not realize until I had some body work done on it a few years later.  Pictures? Very few.  Didn’t have phones with cameras back then, but here goes.  Washing the car the day I bought it and 10 years later with home made bike racks and with the bike I built and raced for 5 years.

Nice Camaro as well!

[VWJake]

For data point: 

 

My ‘68 base 2002. Manufactured June 7th 1968

[Mike Self]

All the US spec 2002s I've seen have the large font, obviously machine-stamped VIN plates, whether from'68 or '69.  I have a VIN plate from 1660900 and it matches those already posted.  I also have a 1600VIN plate but I'm not near it currently so can't check its number or their font sizes 

 

One thing that kinda puzzled me in the original post:  the pop rivets holding it on the car are obviously steel, as they're rusted.  All the VIN plates I've seen were held down by aluminum pop rivets...

 

But if I had to hazard a guess--Steve's explanation of a broken-down stamping machine, either at the BMW factory or the sub-contractor that produced the VIN plates is a logical explanation.  Remember those 76's that don't have VIN plates at all?  Perhaps the same thing happened with them.

 

mike

[Conserv]

On 6/26/2020 at 11:39 PM, 02Les said:

I have pics of quite a few 1600-2 & 2002 cars with same stamping style on the VIN plates, and all plates are missing the year stamp. It seemed it was intermittent throughout the first 6 months of 1968.

Thanks, Les, as always!

 

Just to clarify, by “first 6 months of 1968”, are you referring roughly to (a.) September 1967 through February 1968, or (b.) January through June 1968?
 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[NickVyse]

did US vin plates continue to have the year stamped on them? Don't recall ever seeing that on this side of the pond.

[Conserv]

5 hours ago, NickVyse said:

did US vin plates continue to have the year stamped on them? Don't recall ever seeing that on this side of the pond.

Only in 1968, Nick. Other, more ephemeral underhood stickers, such as the (a.) emissions tuning stickers, (b.) emissions schematic stickers, and (c.) 1976-only “No Catalyst” sticker, noted the car’s model year.

 

The paper VIN stickers mounted on the rear faces of the left driver’s door, another U.S.-only feature, showed a month and year of manufacture, but didn’t disclose the model year.

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by Conserv

[02Les]

45 minutes ago, Conserv said:

Thanks, Les, as always!

 

Just to clarify, by “first 6 months of 1968”, are you referring roughly to (a.) September 1967 through February 1968, or (b.) January through June 1968?
 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

Steve,

 

I was referring to January through June-ish '68; however, I found this pic of a late Nov/early Dec '67 1600-2.

 

The use of this font just seems so random.

 

[old trucker]

why does it say700kg then 780kg is it a wet/dry weight on my id. others have different weights in yet I believe the cars were over 900kg

Edited February 21 by old trucker
not descriptive enough

[jgerock]

I’ll add these two pics of Brian Key’s Granada 68 (Georgia). Not sure if he still owns this car.

[Conserv]

1 hour ago, jgerock said:

I’ll add these two pics of Brian Key’s Granada 68 (Georgia). Not sure if he still owns this car.

And the new-fangled VIN-stamping machine was working like a champ… that day at least!

 

Thanks, Jim.

 

Best,

 

Steve

 

[markmac]

The vin plate on my Alpina race car has EVERYTHING stamped on it, no date indication either.  The metal stamped numbers on the right-side top were cut out and replaced with bare metal.  Someone sometime told me that the German race cars were required to remove that stamping.  No idea if it is true or not.  I asked BMW about it and sent them a pic of the plate; this was their reply.

 

Thank you for your reply.

The BMW 2002 VIN 1627008 was manufactured in Early 1969 and delivered on March 7th, 1969 to Italy. The original colour was Granada, paint code 023. The manufacturer's plate doesn't look wrong to me. It may be a replacement part but even then it's an original replacement part.

We hope this information is helpful for you.

Yours sincerely,

Andreas Harz
BMW Group Archiv

[NickVyse]

4 hours ago, old trucker said:

why does it say700kg then 780kg is it a wet/dry weight

 

early 1600-2

[NickVyse]

1 hour ago, markmac said:

The vin plate on my Alpina race car has EVERYTHING stamped on it, no date indication either.  The metal stamped numbers on the right-side top were cut out and replaced with bare metal.  Someone sometime told me that the German race cars were required to remove that stamping.  No idea if it is true or not.  I asked BMW about it and sent them a pic of the plate; this was their reply.

 

Thank you for your reply.

The BMW 2002 VIN 1627008 was manufactured in Early 1969 and delivered on March 7th, 1969 to Italy. The original colour was Granada, paint code 023. The manufacturer's plate doesn't look wrong to me. It may be a replacement part but even then it's an original replacement part.

We hope this information is helpful for you.

Yours sincerely,

Andreas Harz
BMW Group Archiv

 

 

If it was original original Mark surely only the VIN would be stamped, the rest comes printed for the appropriate model, as per the other examples here. Plus it's not quite the same type face - notice how the down stroke on the 7 is curved, where as all other examples I've seen are straight.