Fake engine stamp or not?

[71VERT]

Is this a restamp? Note how the last letter K does not match up. How where these stamps applied? this car is a 1970. Sorry I was not able to upload file do to its size. Does anyone know if all the letters and numbers should be in a perfectlly straight line. Was the stamp one piece or was each individual letter stamped?

Thx,
Jerry

 

[JohnZ]

Gang-stamps weren't manually changed for different engine codes; the line setup man made up one dated gang holder each morning for each engine code scheduled to be produced that day and placed them in a "pigeonhole" rack at the stamping station. They built 80-100 different engine codes each day (at 270 engines per hour); the stamping operator just grabbed the correct code gang-stamp holder from the rack based on the grease-penciled suffix written on both sides of the unpainted block coming at him and whacked it. If the next engine had a different suffix, he grabbed that gang-stamp holder from the rack and used it.

Unless the engine was an extremely low-volume code, all eight characters should be well-aligned and spaced.

 

[71VERT]

John,
It is a 1970 LT1 convertible, could that have been hand stamped, Just curious if you have ever seen a bad stamp job on a original block.The last letter is deffinitly lower and not straight.
Jerry

 

[IH2LOSE]

email me the photo and I can post it here full size.use the email adress in my profile.

 

[Vettehead Mikey]

John,
It is a 1970 LT1 convertible, could that have been hand stamped, Just curious if you have ever seen a bad stamp job on a original block.The last letter is deffinitly lower and not straight.
Jerry

I don't think a '70 LT1 would be low enough production to qualify as rare.

There's lots of weird and wonderful original stamps out there. Al Grenning has volume after volume of photographs documenting what he's seen and what people have sent into him.

The problem with unusual stamps is that there is always a shadow of doubt regarding their originality. Perhaps if you can post a good closeup picture it will reveal more.

 

[JohnZ]

Here's how engine plant code stamping (and assembly plant VIN derivative stamping) was done; this is a typical gang-holder, with individual dies held in alignment by a pin through the holder. One of these was made up every morning for each engine code. There were occasional weird circumstances, but generally speaking, mis-aligned and/or poorly-spaced characters raise suspicion about the originality of a pad stamp.

 

[71VERT]

thanks John, unfortunatley I cannot load picture because of its size.

Jerry