What is with #1 and #4

[jack alexander]

I recently was talking with a friend of mine regarding our favorite subject, classic corvettes. He told me something that you do not tell someone who has what he feels is an original motor "61". What he told me is that there is some controversy regarding the #s 1 and 4 as they appear on the front stamp pad, and that it will effect how it will be judged. He described it this way. There are supposed to be three different 1's the first looks like a drooping flagpole with no base, the flag drooping to the left. the second looks like the first except that it has a base. The third looks like the Roman Numeral #I but with the top right hand side missing. The issue regarding the #4 is simply as to its being either open or closed. Naturally mine has both #'s. If you guys don't know who does?
Thanks in advance:
Jack Alexander

[Jack H.]

Re: What is with #1 and #4

You didn't get around to asking a specific question....

There were MANY fonts used for specific stamping numbers. It wasn't like Chevy had only one '1'. Plus, dies wore out and broke as well during the stamping process. Next, dies had to be changed in the stamping gang, so there was a pretty constant 'cycling' of individual dies (at least once a day) which could/did introduce new font patterns.

When judges read the stamp pad to assess authenticity, novice judges typically use 'best efforts' based on their personal knowledge. The more senior judges have gathered 'support' material based on personal collections of photographs and tape 'lift' impressions from 'untouched' original pads. That's one reason some of us walk the scrapyards....

Chevy passenger car engines went down the same line at Flint and Tonawanda with car/truck engines. Absent the Corvette specific suffix code ID, they too represent what dies and their specific fonts were loaded into the gang stamp at given points in time.

Soooo, based on a collection of known original stamp pad 'finger prints', the senior judges render judgment call opinion as to whether this/that engine stamp pad actually resembles known originals from the same or similar time period. This is where judging becomes an 'artform' that can't be packed in a 'how to' book. The same goes for restoration and what to look for you buy what the seller claims is a 'numbers matching' car....

[Craig S.]

Re: What is with #1 and #4

Jack - I would contact Al Grenning (algrenning@aol.com) with your questions. He is the master stamp pad judge at Bloomington, and has a stamp pad library with photos of many pads, hopefully some right around your build day...Craig

[Brian McHale]

Re: What is with #1 and #4

If your talking about Jerry Clark I believe he is fine. A little over worked but fine. I do not know #4.

[jack alexander]

Re: What is with #1 and #4

Thanks Guys;
Craig I E-Mailed Al. I look forward to his reply when he gets the time. Your answer was very informative. I thought that the stamping of the corvette motors would be sepatate and in that the run was only about 5000 cars, which is not much for a general motors product, that the numbers would be more consistant.Anyway it made me feel much better about my car.
Thanks;
Jack Alexander

[John H.]

Re: What is with #1 and #4

Jack -

There was nothing "special" about how Corvette engines were built - they went down the line at Flint Engine mixed in with the other 100 varieties of engines they built every day, at 270/hour, and the gang-stamps (all 100+ of them) were made up from bins full of individual dies at the start of the day, each day; the gang-stamp assembly for any individual suffix code changed every day.

[jack alexander]

Re: What is with #1 and #4

Thanks again for the responses. Just for the heck of it I would be interested to know if any of you guys that have a car with a build date around the end of Feb. 1961, could tell me what the #1 and #4 looks like on your car?

Regards,Jack Alexander