Original vs. Repro 901 Shift Knobs

[Bantam]

Well spotted Mike; I said the 915 is original only because I have had it quite a few years and the "texture" of the Bakerlite material is like original 901's I have, plus it is just starting to gain some of that patina that only age brings.......having said all that I have no firm evidence that it is "original".

[frankmar]

Can anyone report on the quality of the Dansk $25 repro?

[jaudette3]

Frank....

I bought one just to check it out.



The font is kind of big and coarse and it's easy to distinquish it from an original, but it's not awful.

John

[frankmar]

Thanks John! It looks good for $25, but details are important. How, about the Porsche classic OEM part? Any experience?

[frankmar]

Anyone can share their experience with the Porsche classic knob?

[mfitton]

I would like opinion on this NOS 901 shift knob I just received, still in it's original packaging. The clear top and numbers look spot on, the only thing that is throwing me off is the bottom rim is flat and I thought all original's had a more rounded rim.

Attachment 366367Attachment 366368

[andrea70]

sorry Mike but it's repro...

here you are a correct knob with rounded bottom...



also the material seems not bakelite..

[NeunElf]

Weren't the originals made out of Bakelite and not plastic? I think this is the reason the sun faded ones pick up a brown hue over time. Bakelite is pretty easy to distinguish from most forms of plastic in person.

Attachment 236177 Attachment 236178

A point of clarification -l Bakelite is a form of plastic (it was the first thermosetting plastic produced).

One of the characteristics of Bakelite is the very distinctive smell when it gets hot - this may be a good way to tell an original from a modern repro ...

Yep, Bakelite is a type of plastic, a phenolic. The old shift knobs might also have been Ebonite (a hard vulcanized rubber). I can't personally verify that 912 steering wheels were actually made with ebonite but several sources say they were.

[210bhp]

Andrea's photo above is just beginning to show what the original bakerlite ones were like under a bit of magnification.
If you look at an original under 50x mag you will see they are not uniform black at all, but the bakerlite is black with brown flecks which are almost 50% of the surface area.

Regards
Mike

[andrea70]

Perfect Mike!
Infact my NOS knob ( i have several of them, late production ( end eighties, start nineties) are all Black/brownish colored under direct light. NEVER deep Black like the modern repro ones!

Here you are one: