Silver or Black VIN Safety Sticker?

[DOUGS73E]

What is the difference between silver and black VIN sticker located on the driver's side door jamb? Were certain years silver and other years black? If I am redundant in asking this, please refer me to the correct thread. Thanks.

[kentf14]

Here you go Doug. All the VIN sticker date detail you could ever want.
http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...sale..-finally

The black decals ended up on early cars as Porsche used to sell them through the dealer as a replacement part. You would receive whatever generation decal was currently in use with your info stamped on it.
People usually got these during a repaint.

[davep]

They were exclusively silver from 1970 MY through 1973 MY. Then from 1974 MY they were in both silver & black; seemingly whatever contrasted better with the paint. Part #'s appear on the 1978 MY decals. To find the correct decal for a particular car, and to find the particular font takes a fair bit of research.

[DOUGS73E]

Kentf14 and davep,

Thanks for the reference link and verifying the difference between the black and silver VIN sticker.

Then it is safe to assume, a silver sticker on a 70-73 MY is the accurate/correct original color. The two pictures above are a black sticker image from a recent Fantasy Junction listing for a '73 911S and the silver sticker from my original '73 911E. I assume since the FJ 911S had been repainted, the restorer made an arbitrary decision to replace the original silver color VIN sticker with a black one. So when I see photos of 70-73 MY 911s, if the VIN sticker is black, it has definitely been replaced during a respray.

An accurate/correct original black VIN sticker will be on a 74 MY or later 911 depending on color.

[robmog]

the black sticker is a later factory replacement.
the factory stopped making silver stickers available in the late 80's.
the only silver sticker available today is a reproduction.