Repaired License Plates

[bison]

It seems every weekend i am working on my truck ( this past weekend i finished putting a new clutch in ) and i have all of these ideas about posting the things i am working on but then for some reason or other i get busy on something else, usually it is the time ( or should i say chore ) of trying to get photos from my iphone to computer ,which is usually a compatibility problem or uploaded them to photobucket ( which i don't really like ) so for that reason ,i am writing this on my Macbook
About 5 months ago i was lucky enough to get a pair of original 1947 California license plates off of eBay for a fair amount less than they usually go for ,granted they were damaged and would need work but i figured i would try my hand at repairing them . it took about a month working on them when i had the time , but i think they came out pretty good . I am ( hopefully )posting a couple of photos of before and after along with a photo of them on my truck , A SPECIAL THANKS to Skip Lackie for the license plate holder that he sent me last year, thanks again Skip
Blake

[ndynis]

Wow! Great job on the plates!!

[8E45E]

VERY nice!

And a fitting 'Commercial' plate meant for trucks, which is far less common than the regular passenger car plates.

Craig

[JRoberts]

Looking very nice. I think a lot of folks do not understand how difficult restoring old plates can be. Yours are a great addition to your truck.

[jclary]

Great job! Here in S.C., I have thought about registering "year of manufacture" plates. However, due to my disdain to becoming embroiled in the morass of government contrived paperwork, I decided to forego the humiliating experience of jumping through the hoops.

For example, here your restoration work could be construed by one of our DMV "Barney Fife deputies" as not being original. Here is a sample of one of several regulations...
The plate must be in its original condition. The plate may not have been repainted or otherwise altered from its original condition. Exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis.


So, you find an original plate, pay thirty bucks above the regular annual fee, just to display an old tag. Already, since our state requires only one rear plate, I have decorative plates boldly stating the year with larger, easy to read year numbers displayed. Even with that, folks still ask "WHAT YEAR IS IT?" Since nobody seems to pay much attention to the boldly displayed custom tag...why would I want to display a vintage plate with even smaller numbers?

If I could display them by putting my time into making the tags look as good as yours. without the paperwork hassle, I would enjoy the challenge.

[8E45E]

Great job! Here in S.C., I have thought about registering "year of manufacture" plates.
For example, here your restoration work could be construed by one of our DMV "Barney Fife deputies" as not being original. Here is a sample of one of several regulations...
The plate must be in its original condition. The plate may not have been repainted or otherwise altered from its original condition.

Alberta has similar rules in that YOM plates must not be altered from their original condition, though one is also issued a current set of Antique plates so it fits into the provincial numbering system in their database, and the extremely slim chance two indentical plate numbers from different years could surface. The current Antique plate does not have to be displayed on the car when the YOM plates are in place, but it has to be kept somewhere in the car, be it under the seat or in the trunk, if one is stopped by a police officer.

Craig

[6hk71400]

Alberta has similar rules in that YOM plates must not be altered from their original condition, though one is also issued a current set of Antique plates so it fits into the provincial numbering system in their database, and the extremely slim chance two indentical plate numbers from different years could surface. The current Antique plate does not have to be displayed on the car when the YOM plates are in place, but it has to be kept somewhere in the car, be it under the seat or in the trunk, if one is stopped by a police officer.

Craig

Years ago, Arizona did things differently (!). There was a statue that to use YOM plates, they had to be recoated with proper reflective paint in the original color to be used. In other words the state basically said we don't want you to use YOM plates. That has changed at this time because now you keep the plate just transfer from car to car. The plate on Jenny's van is 15 years old and the plastic coating is peeling off.

I was discouraged from the law years ago plus the fact the state clips you for an additional charge to display anything other than a state issue new plate. My 97 Oldsmobile is taxed on lieu value so it is cheap to plate each year. The 2012 Dodge Caravan is going down each year but not fast enough for me.

Sounds like Alberta has their hand in your pocket twice just to keep you on your toes.

Bob Miles
Tucson AZ

[asesolen]

Blake, the plates look great! Glad to hear you're get to g the clutch thing figured out too!

[wdills]

Those plates probably look better than the day some one picked them up new from the DMV.

We have it easy here in NC. You can display a YOM plate without any additional paperwork or hassle. You just have to have your current registration and current tag somewhere in the car so it can be shown on request.

[tim333]

Wayne, same here in Illinois

[Corvanti]

Those plates probably look better than the day some one picked them up new from the DMV.
We have it easy here in NC. You can display a YOM plate without any additional paperwork or hassle. You just have to have your current registration and current tag somewhere in the car so it can be shown on request.

here's mine that i refurbished:

[fpstude]

Blake, great resto job. One was quite rough when you started. I have YOM plates on three of our cars. The '63 has it's original black plates. If you get tired of working on Studebakers, you could restore license plates.

[Skip Lackie]

Blake -- Nice job on the plates. That license plate holder was pretty crummy, and I actually found a better one a couple of months later.

I wrote the local DC year-of-manufacture license plate law back in the 1990s, and based it on about a dozen already-existing state laws, all of which required YOM plates to be original and not repainted. However, a number of states have liberalized that requirement in the years since then. DC doesn't have a lot of antique cars, and even few of them are equipped with YOM plates. I'm not sure how carefully the DC DMV enforces the originality regulation, as most of their personnel are far too young to ever have seen any of the older plates in use. When the YOM law was originally passed, I had to provide the DMV with a listing of the original DC plate colors, as they had long since destroyed all their old registration records. Nowadays, they can just refer to the excellent dcplates.com site.

[5brown1]

Corvanti - how did you paint the numbers so they came out looking so good?

In South Dakota you can register YOM plates pay $10 and are good to go forever with limited driving restrictions which I have never seen enforced.

[jclary]

Gee...I recall when nobody wanted to brag about being good at license plate work...

For some reason, instead of "employee"...a license plate craftsman had the title of "INMATE!"