Truck Facts
Line Setting Tickets
(Source: B. Mitchell Carlson's "Triple Diamond Treatise" on page 28 of the January/February 2010 edition (Vol 17-No. 6) of Vintage Truck Magazine)
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A LINE SETTING TICKET represents the "build sheet" for your truck. It is the final word on how a truck was made and where it was shipped to when new. Until a couple of years ago, Navistar would reproduce a copy of an original line setting ticket for post-war trucks. The company no longer performs this service and instead 
has donated more than 3,000 reels of microfilm containing the ticket information to the Wisconsin Historical Society's McCormick/International Harvester Corp. Archives. The society has organized the material, which is now available to the public.
Similarly to Navistar's process, the Wisconsin Historical Society will look up a serial number from the cataloged list and make a photocopy of the information on the microfilm. Copies are available for $20 for each serial number. The cost is comparable to what International dealers had been charging at an earlier time. When dealers were the source of this information, they charged whatever they felt appropriate, and the cost ranged from $15 to $45. Some didn't want to bother with the process at all.
Currently, the line setting tickets are available only by mail order—not from the historical society's website. Requests are processed as quickly as possible, but the organization is involved with a number or projects with a limited amount of staff, so you should allow extra time for the service. Requests can be made in person, but only staff members are allowed to handle the fragile original films.
The microfilm information covers the post-war era, generally starting with the R-series, but there are a few gaps until the late '50s at which time it appears that all U.S. production is available through the early'80s. To order a line setting ticket, contact the archives at:
Wisconsin Historical Society
McCormick/IHC Archives
816 State Street
Madison, WI 53706-1482
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As an alternative, and I do not know their source (for all I know they too go to the International Archives...) - Binder Books offers Line Setting Tickets for $19.95 through their web site as well.
