How much more $ with docs?

[BigBlockBoy]

How much more is a car worth with original documents?

[old5.0]

Depends on the car....

[Mr70]

..and exactly which docs too.

[SBR]

As stated, it depends on the car. The more desirable the car, the more valuable real paperwork becomes. It is however but one piece of the provenance puzzle. If the car is complete with a real drivetrain/tags, owner history then it becomes a little less important. However if its a project car then real paper becomes much more important JMHO.

[BigBlockBoy]

The car is a '67 corvette 427/435hp.It is owned by the same second owner since 1980.The car has not been on the road since '84.It has been painted a candy blue color that is cracking badly.It appears to be all original other than paint,tires,hoses.belts etc.The seller has NO paper work other than title.Tank sticker maybe still on the tank but I can not see it from the gas cap area.Original owner who's name is on the title is deceased.This car will need a bunch of work.My concern is if I buy it and put the money into it that it needs will it be looked down upon with out "paper work"

[Salvatore]

If the car has never been restored it is in your favor. Looked down upon may be the wrong wording. I think a frame-off car needs paper more than one that is just a repaint and a maintained car. A car will identify itself usually in time. Sometimes people get to paranoid over paper. Buying the car or buying the paper? Besides I own a 69 Z/28 and a 69 SS nova. Don't matter how much paper those cars have they would probably be upside down on a real nice resto job in todays market.

[TimG]

It would be nice to have paperwork on a ’67 435 Corvette, that’s for sure. If the price is right on the car and you buy it, it will be important to document the tear down and restoration.

You can peel back the rubber around the tank filler and look to see if there’s a tank sticker in place. I can see my tank sticker very well and it’s a roadster. A coupe is even easier to detect a tank sticker. The presence of one should make the decision easier to make.
You don’t mention the original engine, if it’s gone and the paperwork is gone, we’re talking a completely different price range here.

[BARRY]

HI i would want to drop the gas tank and see the paper it mite not be the right paper work for that car

[TimG]

Chances of a tank sticker mix-up are slim, but here's an article I wrote for The Restorer a few years ago.


Tale of two tank stickers

The 1967 Corvette was the first to have tank stickers, or build sheets, affixed to the top of the fuel tank. This paperwork had been part of the assembly process for many years, but the St. Louis assembly plant began gluing build sheets to the fuel tank beginning with the 1967 model year. The phrase “tank sticker” has become synonymous with Corvettes and this paperwork is often used to help “document” our cars. Something strange was happening on the Corvette assembly line on or around 6-23-67. I’ve been able to determine that at least a small batch of Corvettes assembled late in the 1967 run had incorrect build sheets affixed to their fuel tanks. This discovery all began when a friend acquired a white 1967 350 horse roadster. This car was a Louisiana/Texas car that had a warranty plate and a tank sticker, trouble was the tank sticker described a green 1967 435 horse coupe with a smog pump. This wasn’t even close to the description of his car. The number 21 was hand written on his tank sticker, the ID number of the car ended with number 21, so that could be why it was incorrectly attached.
Fast-forward to September of 2004 and I was fortunate enough to purchase a really nice 427/400 horse, sidepipe roadster that had only been driven 18,000 miles in 38 years. The ID number of this car was 21526, only five cars later than my friends white roadster. The good news was that my low mile green car came with heavy paperwork including the window sticker. While looking at another friend’s low mile 1967 Corvette roadster in the winter of 2006, we peeled back the rubber grommet around the tank only to see evidence of a beautiful tank sticker. He was the prior owner of my green car and I asked him if he had ever looked to see if 21526 had a tank sticker. The answer was “no”. With all of the other paperwork on 21526, no prior owner had ever bothered to check for a tank sticker. When I returned home, the first thing I did was to peel back the rubber grommet on my ’67 and shine a flashlight in the crevice to see if a tank sticker was present. You can imagine my surprise when I could clearly see two tank stickers stacked on top of each other?
My light would not allow me to see much more than the right edge of two stacked documents, but there were definitely two present. Fortunately for me, my car was invited to the NCRS judging retreat that was held in Dallas last February. There couldn’t be a better venue on the planet to further examine this situation. I mentioned to a group of judges that I had seen two separate tank stickers on my car. Some thought that possibly one tank sticker was folded over and I was seeing two edges of the same piece of paper, others volunteered that they’ve seen cars with two documents glued on the tank. We were able to get one of those fancy probe type lights in the depths of the car to clearly see two tank stickers, the top one for 21526 and the one on the bottom for a Lynndale blue car apparently two vehicles before mine. The tank sticker for 21526 clearly had #28 written on it and the one for the blue car clearly had #26 written on it. I’m assuming that the car the second document belongs to is 21524, two before mine.

So here’s what I’ve been able to determine.

21521 has #21 written on the tank sticker and it belongs to car 21519.
21526 has two tank stickers, one with #26 written on it belonging to car 21524 and one with #28 written on it belonging to my car, 21526.

We don’t know why it appears that the tank stickers were off by two cars instead of one car. We don’t know if more than one car received two tank stickers to correct this problem. We also don’t know how many cars were affected by this error, but certainly cars between serial numbers 21519 and 21526 were.
If anyone knows of any 1967 Corvettes around this ID number range, I’d appreciate any information you may have pertaining to your tank stickers.

I haven’t pulled the tank on 21526 because the car is a Bow Tie candidate and I’m hesitant to disturb anything on the car until it’s judged. Until that time, I’ll have to live with two tank stickers.

[firstgenaddict]

I don't remember but how many line were they running in St Louis at the time? If 2 then it could explain the 2vin difference in the mix up... Granted this is probably an oversimplified explanation. If LINE ONE had car #1 LINE 2 had #2 then LINE ONE would have #3 so it would be 2 vins off correct?