Re-positioned Victor S/N plate (?)

[decojoe67]

I have a little mystery here that I wonder if anyone can shed some light on. I recently acquired an all original 1915 Victor Victrola VV-XIV (mohagany). My interest is mainly vintage radios/TV's, but I have a little knowledge about wind-up phono's. Upon doing research on my model I found that the inside metal Victor S/N plate is typically located on the back inner board horizontally and to the left of the tone arm. On mine it's mounted to the right of the tone arm and flat down. I looked closely with a LED light and low and behold there are tiny filled nail holes on the left side where a plate was! I've been around antiques a long time and this repositioning looks as old as the phono. The plate is correct and there's no reason anyone would reposition it even if one was somehow lost and replaced.
My best theory is that a run of plates was made a a little too big and mounting it vertically interfered with the lid closing properly. I did further research and saw another original VV-XIV with the plate flat down, but to the left of the tone arm. Could this be that certain number of these models had to have their plates re-positioned at the factory?
Any thoughts or ideas are welcomed! Joe