ADVERTISMENT
My name is Ed English and I collect USA License Plates.
Some plate collectors have been at it for over 40 years, but I started tin collecting just a few years ago, when my then pre-school sons started matching plates they saw on cars, to the USA map on their breakfast placemats. Matching plates to the map, they quickly learned names and locations of all 50 states. And they had a lot of FUN doing it! (Geography teachers, take a lesson!)
If you want to get some great license plates for your own collection, take a look at PlatesUSA where License Plates from all 50 states are available.
Before getting into License Plate collecting, I collected 1960's comic books and nonsports trading cards (Batman, Superman, Munsters, Lost In Space, etc.). License Plate collecting is another fun and inexpensive hobby. (Well, comics and cards aren't exactly inexpensive anymore). Most plates don't cost very much. Anywhere from a few dollars to $10 dollars gets you a decent current plate, which is what I am mostly interested in.
Current plates from all 50 states are in our collection now. We don't have ALL current plates from ANY state. My home state, Massachusetts, issues over 100 different valid license plates. And some other states have two to four hundred different plates in circulation! For our collection, we pretty much stick to the mainstream current plates from each state.
The early porcelain plates are nice, but rare, especially in good condition. One of my neighbors told her father that I collected plates. (Thanks Carol!)
One weekend, he came by with two boxes full of old plates including 1914 and 1915 Mass porcelains in great condition! Carol's father also brought over the legendary 1928 'Cod' plate, with a crude codfish facing (swimming?) away from the word MASS at the bottom of the plate.
Well, the superstitious fishermen supposedly had a fit, blaming a poor year of fishing on the bad luck brought on by that plate. The following year, the fish was flipped so that it looked like it was swimming toward "Mass". I never did hear if the fishing got better because of this.
SAMPLE plates are not as desirable as 'Real License Plates' and they take a lot of work to get, writing letters to the different state governments (and waiting several months for some to reply), but getting SAMPLE plates from the DMV has some pluses. SAMPLE plates are in brand new MINT condition. But most real License Plate collectors want Real license plates, which are also widely available and it is a fun adventure to hunt down real plates from the states you need.
My car has one of the above "Right Whale" Massachusetts plates on it. The "DREAM" is just that; vanity environmental plates are not allowed in MA right now. Over 40,000 of the Right Whale plates are on the road today. (Although , sadly, I hear only about 300 of the endangered Right Whales remain off the coast of Massachusetts)
Another attractive MA environmental plate is available now, featuring a lighthouse and a cliff, with the slogan: Cape Cod and Islands. This plate costs $80, with $50 of the cost going toward tourist development in the Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard areas.
Faced with a choice of displaying Save the Whales or Save the Tourists sentiment on my own plates, I opted for our ocean dwelling friends. The already crowded Cape Cod and islands need a beacon for more tourists like a dog needs more fleas. But hey, those lighthouse plates do look great!
Another benefit of being a plate collector is that License Plates make a nice artsy wall display in my garage, and for much less then I'd otherwise be paying for Rembrandt's or Picasso's. Two walls in my garage are covered with current License Plates. I mounted large sheets of peg board and got a whole bunch of peg board hooks. It works out great. They look really cool when I shine a large florescent light on them at night. People's reaction when they first see my garage is usually something like WOW!.
I will add more License Plate images to this site, as my time permits. Let me know what you would like to see. Happy collecting!
Turn here to get to the Roadmap to License Plate Web Sites
Happy collecting and thanks for stopping by!
Ed's Home Plate has been visited times since June 25,
1996!