I was and still am under the impression that removing vehicle data plates is illegal/ possibly immoral. OK. not quite immoral, but "shady" at the very least.

Since so many guys are doing body off restorations (or at least disassembly and reassembly - not sure if that is always the same as restoration... especially, when I see the work Greg does in comparison to some of the other stuff).

Anywho... is there a source for OEM-type rivets to replace the factory rivets when a shell is chemically dipped before being reassembled. Second, how close are they to the rivets used by car makers? I'm assuming the OEM rivits used by GM vs Ford or Chrysler would not be the same?  

Why shady? What if you have to replace your driver's side door? Are you then stuck with a non-matching plate to forever cloud your car's past? As long as your plate matches your VIN and it's verifably original to the car and/or it's equipment, I don't see the big deal. The Marti elite report for my cyclone came complete with a new replacement data plate with correct factory rivets. I'll grant you there have been plenty of folks out there who have done bogus plates in the past in order to "load up" their car with options, but with a lot of the folks like Marti and others out there now, it's way less prevalent than it used to be.

Not sure on your specific make rivet question although I see them offered on ebay constantly.

Yea... I saw them on e-bay and a few other sites. But I assume they are generic. I have seen a few cars which had the door plate replaced with everything from pop-rivets to screws or worse. I would guess some of the ones that I saw and didn't recognize as being replaced had been - cause the plates didn't have that thickness or edge of paint that most repaints seem to have when the plate is masked instead of removed and replaced.

Shady as opposed to "shady" is just recognition of intent. I wouldn't doubt there are a few re-body cars being passed off as all-original. I'm not a judge, so its no sweat off my nose, just hate seeing fraud going for big bucks.

Must be the Puritain in me.  Pass the buckled shoes, hats and wide collars.