The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Wierd local customs

Here in Rhode Island folks get off on having low number license plates. Around here it's a matter of pride if your plate only has 4 or less digits and if the numbers are low. My wife inherited her grandfather's 4 digit plate and we transfer it from car to car. Her brother actually offered to buy it from us - Nuts!
My 46 has a 3 digit antique plate and people have approached me asking who I knew to get such a low number. Just luck of the draw.
Is this a wierd RI thing or is this nonsense universal?

Bill, maybe that R.I. thing with the low plate numbers has something to do with R.I. being the smallest state in the union
In certain families in Louisiana it's considered really great if a member of your own family actually made the plates for your truck!

Bill, That continues to be the case with alot of people here in Colorado as well. However, I think it may be a generational thing. I can remember when I was younger, my Dad always wanted the lowest number he could get. For years, my dad and mom had 3 digit plates that were in numerical order. I don't know how that one worked, since the cars were of different years, and were bought and registered at different times????

Here's one for you... here (in Colorado), we used to get a small key-chain version of the plate you were issued when you registered your vehicle. Anyone ever see that one?

I remember the key chain versions in Oklahoma but I think they were provided by an insurance company.

Jed and Cletis, you are refering to the DAV (Disabled american Veterans)tags. They used to send you the tags in the mail and solicit contributions form you. Now they send address lables. The tags have a following, many people collect them. I have seen a couple of them along with the original license plates too. Wouldn't it be nice to have your YOM (year of manufacture)plates and DAV tags match?

Some like those low number plates here in NY too.I once did electricial work at a meat packing plant, the owner had a Porsche,the license plate "Meat 1".
I don't care for vanity plates myself,it's just a government issued ID,the less obivious the better.
I have a set of very nice original 1937 NY commercial plates,never did register them for my 37 truck, I like the beat normal issue plates,more truck like

Those little miniature license plates – Yes, I know about them. I have one hanging from the rear view mirror in my Chevelle. When I got the car from my Great Aunt, the original owner, it was important to her that I keep the plate number that the car always had so she signed a paper giving me her license plates for transfer when I registered the car in my name. Later, after she went into assisted living I found the miniature plate keychain and hung it from the mirror so I wouldn’t lose it.

I worry about the higher cost of the numbers

I read a story a while ago about the RI license plates.. they were issued in sequence, with the governor having #1..

My father likes to have a "454" number on his plates.

My Grandfather even has Post Office Box #1 in the town I grew up in.. my cousin uses it now... the mayor tried to take it from them a while ago, but they managed to keep it.

RI plates are usually 2 letters 3 numbers.
XX 123. Back in the day, the plates would have the initials of the owner. My Chevelle plates are my Aunts initials followed by 3 numbers. They do not purposefully issue plates that way anymore. If they did mine would be WG 123. Maybe they did do them in sequence. I dont know how her grandfather got the 4 digit plates but I do know that his wife's car had the next number in sequence. That plate is long gone. Way back when they issued drivers license numbers in sequence too. My Great aunt's license number was 3 or 4 digits. She's almost 94 now.

In OK, you're stuck with the tag your car comes with if you're buying a used car, since they stay with the car at transfer. I managed to find a 1966 tag for my '66 Coronet with the two letters and "66" as the numbers and registered as a YOM tag...that doesn't happen very often! That tag will stay with me and the regular tag goes with the car, if I were ever to sell it (not likely, since I've had it for 25 years!).

As a Colorado native, people there who are natives, tend to want to retain their older plates (from 1978-on), since that pins you as a native or older resident, rather than a Cali transplant trouble-maker with the new-style tags.

Oklahoma used to have two letters and 1-4 numbers (AA-NNNN), but now all the newer tags are three letters/three numbers, starting at 000-999. Tags back to 1980 as issued, are still legal, if they are on the car they were originally issued to. Usually, they weather-decay to a point where they're nearly unreadable, though.

I am looking for 1946 OK truck and 1952 & 1937 OK car tags (1937 is the last year for two tags in OK, but I'll take one!!!), speaking of license plates!!!

During the war Illinois and I believe Wisconsin plates were made out of a plastic that used soybeans and other organic materials as a base ingredient for the plastic. Metal was scarce. They were about 1/4' thick and when it rained they would emit a smell that attracted all the neighborhood dogs. My Grampa's 35 Chevy had its plates eaten off of it several times by the local dogs. Anybody else remember this?

Weeds, which war are you refering to?

WW2

Delaware has the same low number competition. The gent I bought my 54 wrecker from had a suv sitting in his drive way said he was having truoble registering it. He bought it at a car auction. it had low didgit plate and they sold the plate seperate form the vehicle. The plate brought more than the suv. Normally in De. I think the plates stay with the vehicle and in order for the value to remain the tags registration can't be allowed to expire hence dead tags in junk yard have little value

in indiana the same things happen, the mayor gets # 1 and the rest of the muckymucks scramble to get lower numbers. our plates start with the number for the county 27 for mine plus numbers then after the number comes a letter a thru z some people go to the smaller towns to get lower numbers like 27x 1. popcorns numbers is 85 and a letter then the numbers. silly but no more silly than personalized plates, i have two. cost me 48.00 a year each and i have to get them in jan instead of oct. but i think i make a statement but maybe not. ron

Yep 85A when I was on the fire dept. we were allowed to have and 85F plate plus my seniority number hence 85F 36. When I retired they said it would cost me $20.00 more a year to keep that plate number I said NOT ME!! popcorn The Truth is Out There (Problay get a special plate when the 59 gets on the road)

Something like this in Massachusetts too , my mother still lives there and has a 4 digit plate my father got long _long_ ago (they divorced in the early 60's) she keeps it to remind her how [censored] off she still is after over 40 years !.

(she's full of pi$$ & vinegar)

Here in So.Cal. (land of Fruits & Nuts) the black & yellow plates issued from 1963 to 1969 are beginning to die out to attrition , the DMV won't (yet) allow them as YOM plates so having a pair on your vehicle means (more or less) that it's been in constant registration since new , adding value to your daily beater or an actual classic according to some folks .

I've recently discovered how to keep these on a old junker you just drug out of the desert and at no cost either , the lazy assed welfare to work DMV clerks don't want to do it but calling for a supervisor usually get it done O.K. .

A couple fellows I know got some in under the YOM law , they just handed them in for inspection and were silent , the silly DMV girl
had no idea they were's '59 plates .

vwnate1, my pt crusier has, setlmnt on the plate to remind my exwife of what it cost her to divorce me after 35 yrs. i paid cash for it in 2002 because the courts awarded me her inheritance from her parents. and it also permitted me to semiretire and put about two ton of money in the 54 this last summer.

Here in Iowa, you get what ever the next plate is in the pile behind the clerk unless you go personalized. Three letters followed by three numbers, very boring,
Scott