In its heyday, the Vandervell bearings were superior to almost everything out there.  The floating thrust on their main bearings was ahead of its time and another great feature.  It’s been many years now since Vandervell was bought out by one of the big name bearing companies simply for their advanced technology.
 
In the Seventies/Eighties, Vandervell was the best bearing for holding up to the nitro burning engines versus the others including the Clevite bearings that would simply mushroom or flatten on the loading side in their bores.  I ran the Vandervell bearings successfully in my FE powered drag cars for many years with zero issues related to the bearings themselves.



Without more information, replacing the bearings is a good call.  There are certain risks out there that you can take when doing it for yourself, but when doing it for a customer, then those risks are best minimized by purchasing what looks like better and/or new parts.  Problems arise when certain replacement parts become unavailable with time.  I use a large number of ‘old’ NOS bearings for vintage engine rebuilds simply due to the unavailability of many of those bearings.  But due diligence must be taken to insure that those older NOS bearings have not deteriorated from sitting in what I’ll call poor storage conditions.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

ive already ordered a set im doing this engine for a fellow whos working on my 55 fairlane put in headliner and back and front windows stuff i stay away from.im not going to chance these bearings on his engine.i my use them on my own engine someday.he works on other peoples cars and now is trying to get the engine started in a 55 convertable that sat for 30 years.this fellow tells him its not bad underneath except the rad support is is bad.we had a great laugh over that.crossmember

I would clean them up as suggested and try them with plastigauge if they cleaned up ok.

the company i believe is still in business.must be close to 100 years old.i have found these bearings dont do well sitting for a long time.ive had old ones before with spots on them but nothing like this.ive never heard anyone say they werent good bearings.

I'm aware of the reputation of English cars; however, I wouldn't necessarily conclude that the bearings are defective because they were made in England. 

Before the massive influx of Japanese imports, my grandfather owned Hillmans and Sunbeams. He bought them used (probably cheap) because of the superior gas mileage. He never spun a bearing, threw a rod, or blew an engine. Eventually, he replaced them with a Toyota Corona and a Datsun pickup. 

NOT WORTH THE RISC,  SET OF ROD BEARING NOTHING COMPARED TO A FILURE.  IF THEY WHER MADE IN ENGLAND I WOULD REPLACE THEM.

I would think with a lite clean up they will be fine (scotch brite), 

the shiny part is the coating.thats gone some still have most of it.whatever it is its hard metal coating.the picture is is good as it gets

 
A bit blurry on the picture.  You might see if your camera has a Macro setting for close up pictures.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

sent ted at least i hope i did.