Original leaf springs were stamped with the manufacturer's name and the BMC part number. Thanks to Jim Stout and Thomas Storey for these pictures.


On 7/14/2016, Jim Cheatham wrote:
"While cleaning up the leaf springs I will be using on my car, I also found the letter 'P' embossed on a couple of the leaves. It was not on all of them, only two out of the 14 pieces have it. I wonder if you have seen this mark before and what it means"?

Until shown otherwise, I will guess this is a manufacturer's mark from the steel mill that produced long lengths of the spring steel strip stock. The raised letter would be formed as part of the hot rolling process, appearing periodically along the length of the extended length strip stock. When the strip was later sheared to various lengths for the spring leafs, this mark would likely appear in random location along the length of some of the leafs. Frequency of appearance of this mark would depend on how far apart the marks were on the original long lengths from the steel mill.

Since this mark was found in only 2 places on 2 springs, and about 80% of the leaf surfaces would be hidden from view, it is likely this mark might be visible somewhere in assembly only once on every 5th spring (on average). It might also differ if the spring stock came from a different mill. While this is an interesting point of curiosity, it would not be a good feature for concours judging.

Addendum, January 24, 2018:
Here's another picture, compliments of John Lambie in Australia:


Addendum, February 25, 2021:
And another from Jim Gibson in Northampton, Northamptonshire, UK. And he says, "I also have some stamped BRAMBER AHH 5461, on 1957 1500 Coupe; believed original, measurements are still within specification. In both cases the stamping is only on the small bottom plate".