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MG MGA - MGA BODY SHEET METAL BRAND

My mystry MGA continues. I had all the body parts soda blasted this week and a mysterious brand appeared on the sheet metal of the right front fender.
It appears to be etched into the metal.
It is about 10 cm (4 inchs)in diameter with the bottom cm cut off similar to a horse shoe.
The following is writen in capitals around the permiter.
GREW - VALE
Then underneath and written horizontally
14
?9776
V48 59
R.T.& B.
I hope the text dosen't run togather as all the numbers are on seterate lines. The ? reflects a character I can't make out. The GRE of GREW are very faint, however the W is quite obvious. The characters, GRE are all flat topped so the G could be an F or E.
Can anyone tell me what the mark is and what it means?
Thanks
Morris
M. E. WADDS

Morris, Here goes, the numbers are obviously batch numbers, grades etc but the GREW Vale will be EBBW Vale and this is the town is South Wales in which the steel sheet was rolled. RTB is Richard, Thomas and Baldwin which was the actual name of the company which was part of the Steel Company of Wales before the government of the day nationalised the steel industry when it then became British Steel Corporation - Ebbw Vale Works. BSC ultimately became part of Corus along with Hoogovens Netherlands and Ebbw Vale works in now closed. Another piece of history or useless information whichever you choose.
Iain MacKintosh

I guess if you can read that, it at least can't be that rusty!
dominic clancy

Just put a clear coat over the brand and you are guarranteed to have a curious crowd at any car show.
Matthew Magilton

Wow,
What an amazing bit of MG triva. Very cool!

Now I someone could just answer the question about the numbers I found stamped into the top of my coupe. Yes, coupe, not a removable hard top. We all know they were serialized. Went thru that last time!

GTF
G T Foster

Thanks Iain for decifering the brand. Your information is facinating and will be included in the car's restoration history. This MGA was only on the road 12 years and the serious rust was mostly in the sills and the bottoms of the A & B pillars. Now that all the old paint and bondo is off it is apparent the car suffered a few prangs in the front end. We had to do major surgery to the nose as the front of the body was short about 5 cm fron the front frame bolt holes. I had purchased a front radiator duct on sale from Jorge Cervera in San Diego which made the front end repair doable. Taking the dings out of the inner fender brought every thing forward and down into place.
Cheers
Morris
M. E. WADDS

Morris
The marking V48 59 suggests steel produced in the 48th week of 1959.
Do you know when your car was assembled?
If it was in very late 1959 or more probably early in 1960 then another marking might be considered decoded.
Robin Barker

The plate number suggests that the car was produced in late Feb. or early March 1960 so to me your decoding makes sense as I assume they would have at least 3 months stock on hand. I don't know their inventory practices but I would think a 3 month supply on hand would be nearer the minimum than the norm. Also their with drawal from stock may have been haphazared rather than first in first out or some other scheme. In any case I do find this info interesting.
Cheers
Morris
M. E. WADDS

Morris,
How about a picture of this brand mark?
Barney Gaylord

Iain,

Brilliant deduction worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself. As an Englishman who was around when all of the events you note took place, I can assure everyone that your analysis is entirely plausible.

Dan Barton

Mr. Foster, would you please expand some details on serial # for MGA Coupe's hardtops. I have a Coupe and have hear something about these numbers before. Could yo please explain.
Gordon Harrison

A dumb question but can I post a picture to a response or just sent a copy via an e-mail to whom ever wants one?
I will try to phtograph the brand. When I washed the soda off that fender with vinigar water it became more visible momentarily. Any ideas on how to raise the brand for a picture greatly appreciated.
On second thought maybe Barney can post the picture. I access his site all the time during this restoration.
Cheers
Morris
M. E. WADDS

Gordon,
I've sent you info (and photos) off line. If you think it's worth the effort we could start a new thread to renew this issue.

Regards,
GTF
G T Foster

Dan, it's more than plausable, it is correct!! I was in heavy engineering for over 30 years working with a company who designed and manufactured welding equipment for steel mills amongst other things. We produced equipment for pickle, rolling, galv and tinplate lines and EBBW Vale was one of out major customers. I spent many a long day sitting in technical discussions/negotiations at that plant and know it very well. For anyone across your side of the pond who may be interested some of the equipment we produced for the steel industry was under licence from the Taylor Winfield Corporation of Warren Ohio.
Iain MacKintosh

Iain, of course you are correct. I never meant to imply anything else. I misused the word "plausible". It remains an impressive deduction given Morris's fairly scant material.
Dan Barton

Morris,
Yes, if you send me a picture I will post it on MGAguru.com
I think it will go well in the new "History" section.
Barney Gaylord

No, no Dan I never suspected for one minute that you did. I just wanted to emphasise to all that this information is correct. Re the batch numbers I'm not very sure about this information. The week number and the year are very probably correct. The ?9776 could easiny be 59776 and could ve the coil number which is stamped at the end of each coil and it just happened to land on your fender. The 14 is certainly not thickness as that would be be 14SWG !!! but it could represent a steel grade which is information which we cannot now get access to unless an ex Ebbw Vale employee stumbles on this BBS.
Iain MacKintosh

The picture and currently known details of the sheet metal branding stamp are now on line. See here: http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/history/hs110.htm
Barney Gaylord

This thread was discussed between 07/11/2005 and 11/11/2005

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