AMC NOS Parts Rebagging Reboxing Regifting!

Worth mentioning here is how AMC bagged, boxed, wrapped their NOS parts. You will find thousands of AMC items that dealers rebagged. AMC also sent factory parts in a variety of methods, cloth bags, data tags, boxes, plastic bags to name a few, many times smaller items if sent in BULK didn't receive a box, or bag at all, emblems quickly come to mind. 

A dealership might have ordered 100-200 emblems, and to save money, AMC would put all in one box, not individual bags. 

Some of my favorite myths is that AMC NOS items were uniform, they were not, here for instance is a set of 1970 Ambassador headlight doors, made same period and one part number apart, but one is box, one is bag.

This shows a series of some used, and NOS AMC American Motors emblems starting with top row of some of the packaging they came in. Again, not ALL small items had individual packaging, but above shows some of the boxes and bags a few of these came in, the top row is 1x1 67-69 emblems, second row 67-69 1x1 emblems, third row 70-71 emblems, forth row 72 emblems, fifth row 73-88 emblems, and last row 82(roughly) to 88 emblems. One dealer box I have had over 100 1x1 early emblems, all in paper packets, while another, 73-88 style, unceremoniously all tossed in small old style (pre 70) AM dealer box. I have over 500 NOS AMC Quadratrac and Four Speed 32 oz Group 15 Accessory lubes and oils in cases for instance.

You will find many items got rebagged by the dealerships when AMC Part Numbers were superceded, common every few years as books updated. AMC would send huge box of American Motors bags (the 70-up style) to dealerships to use to update their inventory. Dealers in turn would stamp in ink, or ink on paper decal the items. Sometimes the dealers would simply use magic marker to update the boxes or bags with new superceded information, leaving the old part number on the bag or box also, probably for reference (my opinion).

Above: Upper left clockwise: 1950s Nash gas gauge with box; 1960s computer generated AMC Parts tag; 1960s cloth burlap bag with AC switch; 1970s Dealer bag with emblem; 1970s/80s Dealer plastic bag with sending unit; 1960s/70s r/w/b filter paper sleeve.

As AMC continued to evolve, you had bigger problem with rebagging, reboxing NOS stuff. Dealers went out of business in late 70s, then more in early 80s not wanting to carry the Renault line being pushed on them, so their inventories were changing hands from dealer to dealer. Old tattered boxes and bags replaced with newer boxes and bags. This became a real problem when Chrysler took over AMC in the late 1980s....as suddenly whatever Mopar didn't bulldoze or throw away, they rebagged and reboxed the items with 'Genuine Mopar Parts' boxes and bags, and most remaining AMC parts also ended up with "J" prefix in front of old AMC part number while many others got totally new confusing Mopar part numbers due to Chryslers computer system and software used.

The bottom line is this. Not all AMC NOS parts in the 50s thru 80s got their own 'individual' box, bag or tag. When AMC changed their logo in 1970, many items remained into the late 70s in 'old style' packaging. And again, not unusual to have a dealership, or AMC itself, "update" NOS parts with new logo, part numbers and packaging, then Chrysler, then I would guess DamlierBenz now Fiat! So hard to know what all one might find. Lucky for us, American Motors DID however usually (not always) emboss, stamp or hand engrave their parts. The ones I find amusing are items like door handles and lens housings where it was tight fit and could not stamp so hand engraved by UAW worker decades ago, I am sure he/she didn't have Red Bull or Starbucks before that job, but next time you are working on your AMC, take a moment to look at the AM Part Number if one, on that item, you will also discover the old style AM script was used on parts well into the late 1970s, especially interior items.