License Plate News

[mgk920]

Has any state ever issued a combination USA or US? Or a state abbreviation?

IIRC, New Mexico plates still say 'NEW MEXICO USA'.  This is due to a (distressing) number of people who think that they are foreign plates.

Mike

[Flint1979]

Various thoughts/observations. First post in this thread. I have only read page 90. I probably will repeat something said over the previous 2225 posts, but bear with me.

I remember in the '90s there used to be a Pennsylvania plate (related to Erie - maybe Presque Isle?) that was very hard to read. Brownish background with the characters (letters/numbers) not much different. I lived there in Pennsylvania at the time (near Philadelphia, so a long way from Erie), and thought -- if I was so inclined -- that it would be a good plate to have if you wanted to be able to do things and not get your plate noticed. Driving directly behind people with this plate, I was not able to read the characters much (if at all) and also wouldn't have been able to tell that it was Pennsylvania if I didn't already know.

I have also noticed recently (in the last year) a gold on blue Michigan plate that says "Water and Winter Wonderland" or something similar. Being a Delaware native, I often mistake this for Delaware if I see this from far away. Pennsylvania used to have a gold on blue plate but that went away a while back.

I remember when my family was driving out from Delaware to my sister's wedding in Illinois in 1986, we were driving a Chevorlet Cimarron with Delaware plates. On I-74 somewhere west of Indianapolis (guessing around Crawfordsville), I remember a family looking at us as they passed us by in their car. We figured they had never seen a Delaware license plate before.

Michigan's plate says WATER - WINTER WONDERLAND. It's a throwback plate that all vehicles registered in Michigan had from 1965-1967. The original plate in the 1950's just said WATER WONDERLAND then WINTER was added later. It is simular to Delaware's plate, actually I just saw a Delaware plate in Michigan yesterday. Delaware's plate is a slightly different color using a more goldish brown color rather than the yellow color of Michigan's. The plate has the color scheme to honor the University of Michigan and yes Michigan State fans get this plate too, it came out in December 2021.

[thenetwork]

The plate on the left was one the worst license plates I have ever seen. Rare L for Colorado, who has one of the best standard plate designs in the country.

As a piece of art, I love it. I want it as a wallpaper on my computer. But license plates should not be art-first, readability-second. The fact that it took all the way to final production to finally switch to white numbers tells me that no one actually considered the readability of the plate during the concept and selection phase. Or they did, but didn't have the gut to tell the under-13-year-old that her plate has awful contrast.

This photo of an early production of the plate clearly demonstrates how awful the contrast was with black lettering. White lettering should work fine...still don't get the fascination with art for license plates.

Well said, there should be regulations on legibility. Is there a confirmation that the plate will have white lettering? All the images I can find show it with black.

I could've sworn I saw my first one in the wild the other day, and the lettering was white -- albeit it was still a little too busy and hard to read.  Not as bad as the ^^ example. The other plate commemorating the state's 150th anniversary in a few years was also spotted in the wild.

Speaking of new Colorado plates, the white-on-black "throwback" plate is a hot seller, as I see at least one everytime I leave the house to go somewhere.  The similar red and blue throwback plates have also been spotted on the road, but I have only seen a handful of either.

[Ted$8roadFan]

Has any state ever issued a combination USA or US? Or a state abbreviation?

Kentucky used its abbreviation "KY" on its plates from 1977 to 1983.

[MATraveler128]

New Jersey did until 1977.

[Scott5114]

Has any state ever issued a combination USA or US? Or a state abbreviation?

Oklahoma issued OK-#### plates on the 1981 base, but they were coded that way for Okfuskee County rather than the state of Oklahoma.

[jnewkirk77]

Indiana used either "IND - XX" or "XX - IND" (XX being the 2-digit year) on plates from 1956-73 for passenger plates, and from 1956-93 for trucks and others.

[kphoger]

Kansas has started issuing plates with seven characters of the format NNNNLLL.

The plate design has not changed

Confirmed in the wild.  I've now spotted two Kansas license plates in the 1234ABB series, both in Derby, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

[tmoore952]

Various thoughts/observations. First post in this thread. I have only read page 90. I probably will repeat something said over the previous 2225 posts, but bear with me.

I remember in the '90s there used to be a Pennsylvania plate (related to Erie - maybe Presque Isle?) that was very hard to read. Brownish background with the characters (letters/numbers) not much different. I lived there in Pennsylvania at the time (near Philadelphia, so a long way from Erie), and thought -- if I was so inclined -- that it would be a good plate to have if you wanted to be able to do things and not get your plate noticed. Driving directly behind people with this plate, I was not able to read the characters much (if at all) and also wouldn't have been able to tell that it was Pennsylvania if I didn't already know.

I have also noticed recently (in the last year) a gold on blue Michigan plate that says "Water and Winter Wonderland" or something similar. Being a Delaware native, I often mistake this for Delaware if I see this from far away. Pennsylvania used to have a gold on blue plate but that went away a while back.

I remember when my family was driving out from Delaware to my sister's wedding in Illinois in 1986, we were driving a Chevorlet Cimarron with Delaware plates. On I-74 somewhere west of Indianapolis (guessing around Crawfordsville), I remember a family looking at us as they passed us by in their car. We figured they had never seen a Delaware license plate before.

Michigan's plate says WATER - WINTER WONDERLAND. It's a throwback plate that all vehicles registered in Michigan had from 1965-1967. The original plate in the 1950's just said WATER WONDERLAND then WINTER was added later. It is simular to Delaware's plate, actually I just saw a Delaware plate in Michigan yesterday. Delaware's plate is a slightly different color using a more goldish brown color rather than the yellow color of Michigan's. The plate has the color scheme to honor the University of Michigan and yes Michigan State fans get this plate too, it came out in December 2021.

The color scheme is also the same as the color scheme for the University of Delaware. On a non-traffic note, even the football helmets are the same.

Older Delaware plates (after the time they were all black) had a blue background, wo any hint of green. At some later point that blue became more of a blue-green color.

[Flint1979]

Various thoughts/observations. First post in this thread. I have only read page 90. I probably will repeat something said over the previous 2225 posts, but bear with me.

I remember in the '90s there used to be a Pennsylvania plate (related to Erie - maybe Presque Isle?) that was very hard to read. Brownish background with the characters (letters/numbers) not much different. I lived there in Pennsylvania at the time (near Philadelphia, so a long way from Erie), and thought -- if I was so inclined -- that it would be a good plate to have if you wanted to be able to do things and not get your plate noticed. Driving directly behind people with this plate, I was not able to read the characters much (if at all) and also wouldn't have been able to tell that it was Pennsylvania if I didn't already know.

I have also noticed recently (in the last year) a gold on blue Michigan plate that says "Water and Winter Wonderland" or something similar. Being a Delaware native, I often mistake this for Delaware if I see this from far away. Pennsylvania used to have a gold on blue plate but that went away a while back.

I remember when my family was driving out from Delaware to my sister's wedding in Illinois in 1986, we were driving a Chevorlet Cimarron with Delaware plates. On I-74 somewhere west of Indianapolis (guessing around Crawfordsville), I remember a family looking at us as they passed us by in their car. We figured they had never seen a Delaware license plate before.

Michigan's plate says WATER - WINTER WONDERLAND. It's a throwback plate that all vehicles registered in Michigan had from 1965-1967. The original plate in the 1950's just said WATER WONDERLAND then WINTER was added later. It is simular to Delaware's plate, actually I just saw a Delaware plate in Michigan yesterday. Delaware's plate is a slightly different color using a more goldish brown color rather than the yellow color of Michigan's. The plate has the color scheme to honor the University of Michigan and yes Michigan State fans get this plate too, it came out in December 2021.

The color scheme is also the same as the color scheme for the University of Delaware. On a non-traffic note, even the football helmets are the same.

Older Delaware plates (after the time they were all black) had a blue background, wo any hint of green. At some later point that blue became more of a blue-green color.

Michigan went to a yellow on green plate in 1968 after the Water-Winter Wonderland one and changed it from Water-Winter Wonderland to Great Lake State. Then went to a red on white plate, white on light gold. I really don't understand why they were changing the color scheme every year in the 60's and 70's.

[roadfro]

Has any state ever issued a combination USA or US? Or a state abbreviation?

Yes for Nevada:

The "United We Stand" special plates have a stacked 'US' as the first two characters. This plate is still in production.

The special sesquicentennial plate had a stacked "NV" as the first two characters. This plate was produced circa 2013-2016 (the state's 150th anniversary was 10/31/2014).


EDIT: Fixed two typos

[kphoger]

Kansas has started issuing plates with seven characters of the format NNNNLLL.

The plate design has not changed

Confirmed in the wild.  I've now spotted two Kansas license plates in the 1234ABB series, both in Derby, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

It occurs to me now that I may very well end up with one of these new 1234ABC plates next year.  I've read that Kansas was going to start replacing old embossed plates with new flat plates.  Now, I don't know for certain that the plan is still moving ahead, but our car does have an old embossed plate, so maybe we'll be getting a new one when it's time to renew the registration next year.

[GaryA]

Has any state ever issued a combination USA or US? Or a state abbreviation?

California issued special plates for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (with the "dashing stars" logo), for which you could have either a stacked "US" or a stacked "LA".

There were also later Olympics plates (with the US Olympic Training Center logo, or with "USA" above the five rings), which offered either a stacked "US" or stacked "CA".

[chrisdiaz]

At my job's parking lot I saw South Carolina's new license plate letter sequence. I thought it was kind of funny that they didn't finish out the current letter sequence, stopping around halfway through the X's. The standard issue is now NNN LLL. I assume it is going alphabetical as opposed to numbers, as the plate I saw today had letters of AAB. The font was also changed. That was what made me do a double take, as I thought it was a fake plate at first.

The "While I Breathe, I Hope" plate is still the standard issue. No changes were made to the plate design.

[DRMan]

Arizona has added three specialty plates. That brings the total to 101 choices! Does any state have more options?

https://tucson.com/news/local/adot-three-new-specialty-license-plates-arizona/article_32e96116-7430-11ee-be18-2fc94e97af2f.html

[Alex]

Arizona has added three specialty plates. That brings the total to 101 choices! Does any state have more options?

https://tucson.com/news/local/adot-three-new-specialty-license-plates-arizona/article_32e96116-7430-11ee-be18-2fc94e97af2f.html

Virginia has 335 based upon the DMV specialty license plate search page

[formulanone]

Arizona has added three specialty plates. That brings the total to 101 choices! Does any state have more options?

https://tucson.com/news/local/adot-three-new-specialty-license-plates-arizona/article_32e96116-7430-11ee-be18-2fc94e97af2f.html

Virginia has 335 based upon the DMV specialty license plate search page

Florida has a lot, but closer to 180 than 300. There's also dozens more special-issue plates which usually aren't available to the public.

[Big John]

Arizona has added three specialty plates. That brings the total to 101 choices! Does any state have more options?

https://tucson.com/news/local/adot-three-new-specialty-license-plates-arizona/article_32e96116-7430-11ee-be18-2fc94e97af2f.html

Virginia has 335 based upon the DMV specialty license plate search page

Florida has a lot, but closer to 180 than 300. There's also dozens more special-issue plates which usually aren't available to the public.

For universities, Georgis is the only out of state college included, for reciprocity of Georgia having a number of out of state university license plates, including those in Florida.

[rlb2024]

Which university has the most out-of-state vanity plates?  For example, you can get an LSU license plate in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas (2 varieties).

[jakeroot]

A new vanity license plate just launched here in Okinawa to support the reconstruction of Shuri Castle. The color example is available with an addition 1000 Yen donation, and the monotone is the standard variant. The green edging plate is for businesses, and the yellow for kei cars.

As with all plates in Japan, they are embossed.

[TheCatalyst31]

Which university has the most out-of-state vanity plates?  For example, you can get an LSU license plate in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas (2 varieties).

Alabama's got to be up there. You can get their plate in Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and Maryland.

[apeman33]

Why did they stop the good 123 ABC series

which had already issued more than half of its combinations?

You just answered your own question.  The series would have run out in about three or four years anyway.

Don't series normally run to completion?

They usually do, yes.  But exceptions exist.  For example...

The previous Kansas series (ABC 123) was ditched partway through Xxx.

South Carolina switched from 123 ABC to ABC 123 partway through Xxx.

Ohio switched from ABC 123 to ABC 1234 without having used Zxx.

A bit late to the party, but I don't snoop around as much here anymore.

From what I remember, the ABC 000 series got to the S's before the most recent plate design came into effect. What's I distinctly remember seeing STL NNN in Bourbon County.

The highest in the 000 ABC series that I've seen out in the wild is SNC NNN.

So neither of the previous series made it to T, from what I remember.

The only surprise to me was going with NNNN LLL instead of LLL NNNN.

[kphoger]

As for not completing the 123 ABC series...  It's not like they wasted those remaining serial numbers.  They're still available.

[swake]

Arizona has added three specialty plates. That brings the total to 101 choices! Does any state have more options?

https://tucson.com/news/local/adot-three-new-specialty-license-plates-arizona/article_32e96116-7430-11ee-be18-2fc94e97af2f.html

Virginia has 335 based upon the DMV specialty license plate search page

Florida has a lot, but closer to 180 than 300. There's also dozens more special-issue plates which usually aren't available to the public.

Oklahoma has more than 250 plates, and that not including tribal plates, and there have to be 100+ different tribal plates.

[Flint1979]

Michigan has brought back the old blue and white plates which were in circulation from 1983 to 2007 two years after bringing back the 1965 to 1967 Water-Winter Wonderland plate. These plates are the ones that say Great Lakes at the bottom. I saw one for the first time in about 15 years today.