Gas Valve Question

[Walt Ebie]

Recently installed a new gas valve so I thought I'd disassemble the old one to see if it could be redeemed as a spare. But the disassembly led to a question. In the picture you see all the parts of the valve and nowhere was there any shred of anything you could call 'packing.' All the repair kits I see include a packing cylinder so was there supposed to be some in this valve? It was put in when the car was restored about 1980-83 so were there valves that didn't use packing back then? The valve never leaked a drop - just got really hard to open and close. I hope a little valve grinding compound (or whatever you all use) and I can hand-lap the valve back into service. But what about the packing?