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Just the grill "recesses" in the 50's were that ivory color apparently. Pretty much the flat part behind the headlights. But, like you said, every single factory seemingly was different. I pulled that description above out of an old thread on FTE. Somebody else came right behind and showed another excerpt out of another book that had some differences. Here's the link to a very interesting thread on FTE about these VIN numbers. It started out as a quest to find the "cutoff" between the 49's and the 50's. But it has converted into a big pot of information. You said that your build date is stamped in paint. They'd be really interested in seeing a picture of that. First one I've heard of. Plus you can post your VIN and cowl stampings there and they'll tell you a whole lot about your truck.
http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/42...n-cut-off.html
Just to give the original poster a ballpark idea. My 49 VIN is something like 98RC242000 while my 50 is closer to 98RC324000.