If you happen to move to another state, or sell the car to someone who does, the DMV in that state will have, and use, a book listing titling procedures in all states. They can easily look up "pre-73" and "New York" and see that you're not trying to pull a fast one.
There are several states that issue registrations instead of titles for older cars, and helping folks in states with more onerous titling rules seems to be a good source of revenue for some of them.
I bought my car from the original owner, and had the son of a friend pick it up. When he did so, he also collected the title. Somehow, during the process of bringing the car to me, he lost the title. I asked the seller to go to their DMV (in California) and get a replacement title, but they got confused and got a replacement registration, instead.
When I saw it, I immediately noticed the VIN ended in "00912" instead of "009112", which was stamped on the car. This meant, I think, that the car had never had the correct VIN on the paperwork. Since the car stayed in one state, and registration was just renewed each year, this was not a problem. In fact, the seller didn't believe me when I told her the number did not match the car.
To title a car in Colorado that is brought from out of state, one must get the VIN verified, and if I had done that (after getting the replacement title), I'd have presented the DMV with documents containing two different, though similar, VINs. No telling what problems this would have caused.
So, I got a title from International Titling Service, or something like that, a Nevada outfit that has a website. It cost me about $150, and about 10 days later, I received a Maine title and bill of sale from a Maine car dealer, and these papers were mailed to me from Atlanta, Georgia. I then got the VIN verified and took the Maine paperwork with the VIN verification to the DMV and got a Colorado Title. It is a normal title, not a salvage title.
There are a lot of ways to be creative in titling vehicles!
Joe
