Curious about 1970 Blazer rear bumper brackets

[bigdon-70blazer]

Here is the story. I disassembled my blazer and got to the rear middle bumper brackets and noticed that they had a strip of metal welded to them. I thought at that time that it was because the po had some type of issue with them and he had done the welding because it does not look like a factory job. See pics. So I started looking for replacements for these which has been no walk in the park. So I figure check out GMC Paul and see what he has, supporter of the web site and all. When I look at what he has, I am curious to see that his new reproduction middle rear bumper brackets come with what was termed as "the extra metal reinforcement" on them and it looks surprisingly like the old brackets I removed. Could the factory have actually done the welded reinforcement to my set of brackets? If so I will just blast and paint and use them as I am trying to keep it as original as possible. Has anyone ever seen this done to their own early blazers?