Could it be that the VERY first production runs used the red and silver 2 hole ID tags, for whatever reason, and then on a later run, they used the typical Vendo ID tag.
So those of us with the 2 hole set up on the sides of our machines might infact have the very first X amount of 39's produced, then from a certain point on, they used the reg. ID tag.
Ed,
That sounds like a pretty reasonable assumption to me. Does anyone know when they switched from the all red to the 2 tone? Also if anyone has a red id tag and can decode the date, along with someone that has the black tag and can also decode the date. That might tell us when the switch was made so we could both have a rough idea on the dates of our machines