Picked up my first Geni at the recycle centre and worked out it's lid stamped with 93 and manufactured in 94. Looking at some pics around other , did they have the black Weber badge on them for long, and is it usual to have the serial number and date of manufacture hand written?
Never seen the hand written SN before and I have had over 1000 genesis grills cross my path. Never seen an all black badge either. I think the badge was just repainted. If you take a sander to the face of the badge, it will likely look normal again.
Those end caps dont look like they have the factory textured powder coat. They look like they've been stripped and painted so my guess I yeah, that badge is painted too.