69-70 Inner Grille - OEM - OER - or Reproduction

[BrianG]

Hello, I need some help from the experts, and hopefully a vender or two can chime in.

I recently purchased what was supposed to be an OEM inner grille for my 69. This was purchased from a rather well known supplier of parts for our trucks. They had both a reproduction and what is supposed to be an OEM version for 100 dollars more. I went with the OEM to ensure original quality, fit, appearance, and so on.

Well, what I received is not in my opinion an OEM grille. It does not seem to be of the same quality as some of the true OEM's that I have at home. I have both original 69 and original 70 inner grilles at home. I know this has all been discussed many times, and I can confirm that the new inner grille that I purchased is more similar to the 70 design and painted to look like the 69 design. There are plenty of threads already to discuss that and this is not meant to be one of them.

There are no part numbers on the new part that I can find. It was wrapped in white paper with the vender's part number taped to that. I did call their customer service and spoke to a very nice woman who understood my concerns and checked into it. She claims that they purchase these directly form General Motors and that they just come wrapped in the white paper. The reproduction ones that they carry are not black on the back and silver painted on the front like the OEM, and come in a box. I have looked at many other companies carrying what they claim is a very good quality reproduction of the inner grille and their pictures look exactly like what I purchased.

Sooo..... Any ideas of how I could tell if this is truly a GM part or a decent quality OER part???

I don't really think that the company is purposely being deceitful, but perhaps their vender is. I am starting to believe that I may have been taken for an extra $100. And that doesn't really make me happy, but wouldn't be the first time with this project.

Here is a picture of an area where there is quite a bit of extra slag from the mold. There are many areas like this. I wouldn't expect this from a true GM OEM part.