What is the dash vin supposed to look like?

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71' Grande project.
Here is the question, are the raised letters on the vin plate also painted that background olive drab /  Dark grey color? 
 

My vin plate was super grungy and had a layer of beer residue reinforced with dirt on top of it.  After cleaning it a bit I can’t tell if the stamped raised letters were supposed to be silver or the same as the background.

 
Found one example, but it is pretty dirty.  
I am leaning in the direction of a thin coat of matte/satin dark grey, possibly with an hint of green.  Paint the entire tag, raised letters and all.  
 

Anybody have an example out of a cleaner car?

For the life of me I can’t figure out how to embed a photo.  Link to dirty example below.

 https://ibb.co/D8fsnhN

 
My dash is black, the letters are black but edges are worn.  There are two script style ' F 's  before and after the Vin. The letters are raised and match the plate. I assume it was black but faded to maybe a funky grey.

Ps. I know  I'm grey!!

 
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Well, I found a paint that is pretty close to stock for the Vin.  Humbrol 66 model paint.  It is matte, I think the original was more satin.

FDB82-FF9-B71-D-4287-9244-B47931-C41580.jpg


 
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I think what you're really looking at is this. The material would be supplied with a paint finish applied. I'm assuming the base metal is aluminum, but as I have not had one actually in my hand, that's my guess. No matter, the result is the same. When the numbers are struck, it stretches the material and in that process, the base metal will show through. So in a nutshell, the background is a paint of some sort, maybe e-coat or even powder coat, or.... and the numbers are raw material. So the trick will be to duplicate that look.

 
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Close enough.  The camera case texture looks a little much in a close up, but I like it.  
 

As best as I can tell the raised characters were coated / painted too.  There is a pretty good pic on Marti’s site.  https://www.martiauto.com/CoolStuff/fraud/VINTag.cfm
 

The top of the raised charters would have have been stretched in the stamping process- so if the tags were coated pre stamping the coating would be thinner there.  A few decades out in the sun would erode that thin layer.  Same would hold true if they were painted post stamping as the paint would be thinner on the crests of the stamped characters.

That might explain why some of the cars appear to have bright metal stamped letters with a painted background opposed to what Marti shows.

D1-F41048-CED8-4061-B368-A925-AA90-FB54.jpg


 
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