I have begun my hunt for a good pie pan to celebrate my 40th next year and am aware that there are a lot of franken/fakes out there. One thing I have noticed is that on pie pan date models, some have and others are missing the smaller hour marker at the 3 o'clock position. Is this just variations with different pie pans? Hour marker fell off on some dials? Or a sign of a franken/fake/refinished dial?

I have noticed this recently but the latest example is on a 168.005. some examples are the smaller hour marker while others don't.

 

That is normal. Usually, the later models don't have that small marker and the eariler do. But some early ones don't have it, either.
Certainly, people like to have it because it looks better.

168.005. 21 mil serial #



168.005 . 24 mil serial #.