Tag dilemma

1748 S wrote:

alsancle wrote: My dad and I had a battle over his Auburn. His car had reproduction tags on the cowl and engine. While I was up in the Attic a few years ago I literally ran in to both original tags hanging from a piece of wire from the ceiling. I'm looking at them, and I yell to my dad "what the bleep is this?". He looks at me and says why would I want to put those crappy old tags on a nice car. I told him "so you will be able to sell it when the time comes".
If the tags are legible, always use the original ones. If you can't, take a bunch of pictures of them just in case and screw them to the floorboards under the rug or in the trunk so they don't get lost.

Anyone pissing on original tags has not been in the hobby very long.

Am in complete agreement with retaining the original tags. They go along ways to proving something IS original. But of course any previous owner may have "made" the car your looking at and "found" a set of original tags so they installed them. Then too there are still little known ways to know if the car really matches the original tags. Some of them are well kept secretes not normally shared for obviously reasons.


Gary Parsons

Note: I have not paid attention to Cord, but in an Auburn someone could easily figure out if you have original tags on your car that were from another Auburn (the tag lists the engine # and the Serial # - and the engine number is stamped on the block matched to some cars also having a brass plate on the block, plus the serial number decodes to match the stamped frame number (when you know how to use your Little Orphan Annie magic decoder ring). There is no shame with original tags on cowl, starter, generator, distributor, engine, and ... The shame is when the original tags are replaced and lost from the car (SCREW "ALL" THE ORIGINAL TAGS TO THE CAR IF YOU REPLACE THE TAGS).

I agree that the tags are only part of a cars provenance, and it depending on what car we are talking about, sometimes it doesn't really matter. Ownership history, paperwork, etc are all important too.

alsancle wrote: My dad and I had a battle over his Auburn. His car had reproduction tags on the cowl and engine. While I was up in the Attic a few years ago I literally ran in to both original tags hanging from a piece of wire from the ceiling. I'm looking at them, and I yell to my dad "what the bleep is this?". He looks at me and says why would I want to put those crappy old tags on a nice car. I told him "so you will be able to sell it when the time comes".
If the tags are legible, always use the original ones. If you can't, take a bunch of pictures of them just in case and screw them to the floorboards under the rug or in the trunk so they don't get lost.

Anyone pissing on original tags has not been in the hobby very long.

Am in complete agreement with retaining the original tags. They go along ways to proving something IS original. But of course any previous owner may have "made" the car your looking at and "found" a set of original tags so they installed them. Then too there are still little known ways to know if the car really matches the original tags. Some of them are well kept secretes not normally shared for obviously reasons.


Gary Parsons

My dad and I had a battle over his Auburn. His car had reproduction tags on the cowl and engine. While I was up in the Attic a few years ago I literally ran in to both original tags hanging from a piece of wire from the ceiling. I'm looking at them, and I yell to my dad "what the bleep is this?". He looks at me and says why would I want to put those crappy old tags on a nice car. I told him "so you will be able to sell it when the time comes".
If the tags are legible, always use the original ones. If you can't, take a bunch of pictures of them just in case and screw them to the floorboards under the rug or in the trunk so they don't get lost.

Anyone pissing on original tags has not been in the hobby very long.

If you lift up my carpet you will generally find all the original date plates screwed to the floorboards - mount them someplace on the car for safe keeping.

Definitely KEEP the originals somewhere safe. For me I plan to keep my originals in place because they ARE the originals. That happened only once in 1937 so I plan to keep them that way no matter what the others looking want to see.


Gary Parsons

Ok, put the original tags back on. I painted mine with clear laquer.

Terry, actually it works in reverse here and probably elsewhere . When some people see the reproduction tags they immediately think the car is a reproduction. Have come across this scenario numerous times.

Graham in the isolated islands of New Zealand who is going to know the difference? Your Westchester looks brand new so keep the original tags tucked away for safe keeping and have the reproduction items looking nice on the car.
You could set the original tags with a picture of the car in a frame.

Vicus circle. At ACD judging you will get kudos for originality and dinged for condition. At most other judging condition is probably more important as they won't know orig. from new. Just my opinion. I'm sure Cord 810/12 experts will be better suited to advise you.
CORDiallyMike

I fitted new reproduction ID tags during restoration, but am wondering now if that was the right thing to do, or should I refit the original sandblasted and beat up tags to maintain originality. Your thoughts appreciated.