A few years back
The Corvette Restorer had a series of stamp pads for people to send in comments on original or fake. I don't remember the exact number, but it was something like 47% got it right. (I'm sure someone will correct me on the number.)
Anyway, the moral to the story is that most of us won't know for sure. My experience is that the odds of being fake increase by the rarity of the car and much of the authenticity can be determined by reading the owner/seller as by reading the pad.
I think you have a small chance of it being faked, simply because of the pressure put on by restoration and the market to have a "matching numbers" car, but overall, I think you have very good odds of it being real.
It looks quite similar to others I have seen. Nicks and stuff are common. Someone faking it would be afraid to leave somthing like that there, jsut for the doubts expressed here by several. Imperfections were production. Perfection you should doubt, as that is the sign of a craftsman who has lots of time to make it right.
I looked at a 400 hp '67 two weeks ago. The pad had a rusted and scratched streak down the center, common from the days of people "cleaning" pads with sandpaper to see the numbers. Someone faking the car would never have left something that threw up red flags like that.
At the Earthquake '88 Bloomington, the Special Collection had several '67 Corvette L88 cars. I believe that all of them but one had non-original engines, yet I doubt anyone would discount the value of them for it.
The true value of an original engine was 30 - 35 years ago. It was an indicator that the car had not been screwed with, as anyone around these in the '70s knows how they were run hard and put up wet most of the time. Hotrodding the engines was the norm, not the rarity. Build them up, race them hard, blow them up, build another one. Probably 50 people restored them. 5,000,000 ran the living crap out of them.
To find a stock original car was a rarity, and that is where the original engine/original car came to be a thing of value. It was a rarity. Today, with $20,000 - $40,000 restorations on a car, it really doesn't matter what the history was, because the car is now new in every sense. And a stock original-like car is not a rarity today, it is the norm.
The Corvette Restorer had a series of stamp pads for people to send in comments on original or fake. I don't remember the exact number, but it was something like 47% got it right. (I'm sure someone will correct me on the number.)
Anyway, the moral to the story is that most of us won't know for sure. My experience is that the odds of being fake increase by the rarity of the car and much of the authenticity can be determined by reading the owner/seller as by reading the pad.
I think you have a small chance of it being faked, simply because of the pressure put on by restoration and the market to have a "matching numbers" car, but overall, I think you have very good odds of it being real.
It looks quite similar to others I have seen. Nicks and stuff are common. Someone faking it would be afraid to leave somthing like that there, jsut for the doubts expressed here by several. Imperfections were production. Perfection you should doubt, as that is the sign of a craftsman who has lots of time to make it right.
I looked at a 400 hp '67 two weeks ago. The pad had a rusted and scratched streak down the center, common from the days of people "cleaning" pads with sandpaper to see the numbers. Someone faking the car would never have left something that threw up red flags like that.
At the Earthquake '88 Bloomington, the Special Collection had several '67 Corvette L88 cars. I believe that all of them but one had non-original engines, yet I doubt anyone would discount the value of them for it.
The true value of an original engine was 30 - 35 years ago. It was an indicator that the car had not been screwed with, as anyone around these in the '70s knows how they were run hard and put up wet most of the time. Hotrodding the engines was the norm, not the rarity. Build them up, race them hard, blow them up, build another one. Probably 50 people restored them. 5,000,000 ran the living crap out of them.
To find a stock original car was a rarity, and that is where the original engine/original car came to be a thing of value. It was a rarity. Today, with $20,000 - $40,000 restorations on a car, it really doesn't matter what the history was, because the car is now new in every sense. And a stock original-like car is not a rarity today, it is the norm.
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