I guess the venerable Type IV engine no longer has head gaskets (according to some).

Can any of you old-schoolers identify the gasket-in-question in this picture?

The smaller diameter rings are indeed the "Head sealing rings" and the larger diameter rings are cylinder base shims IIRC.

Bus/1.8?

So you're going with the semantic difference between "head sealing ring" and "head gasket"?

Is that correct?

To be perfectly clear:

They can be called whatever you want. The guy who sold me my gasket set listed it as a "Head sealing ring" that I was told to leave out, and lap the cylinder to the head instead.

Yes, the arrow is pointing towards a head gasket.

If i'm not mistaken, there was a VW bulletin going out to all mechanics back in the day to leave them out when rebuilding T4 engines.

I'm simply attempting to make the point that Type IV engines came with "head gaskets".

That's all.

To leave out those things that do not exist

Ya, They came with them and so did the engine rebuild kit I purchased. But I followed the lead of others here and did not use them.