Scott
I feel a little like a drug dealer but I put away my scale when I was moving and have no idea where it is. I am curious though as well.
I will ask Gerhard Reiser, the host of the Deutsche E9 Forum, from whom I bought the grille.
When I asked him about the imperfection, his response was:
“The parts are all NOS, Quality from 1968. The sticker part number was orange, very old parts. It was really, that the quality 50 Years later in 2018 was better. 50 Years ago never look so exactly as the people which restore now. I know about this but can’t do NOS in better quality.”
Bottom line from my imterpretation of Gerhard’s comment is that manufacturing processes back in the late 60 and early 70s were not as strict on quality control measures and small imperfections were commonly introduced into the assembled cars that have become what we now observe as patina in these UNRESTORED cars.”
More likely than not, IF someone had a small imperfection like the one pictured, it probably is the one that got broken off over a 40-50 year time horizon.
