ALPCA Garden State Region

Last week we took a look at a 1977 vanity plate. This week we look at a 1989 New Car Dealer plate.

Since the debut of the still valid 1959 license plates, the letter D in the first letter position on a plate was the exclusive province of two types of plates – Disabled American Veterans (DAV) plates which begin with DAV and the various types of dealer related plates such as New Car Dealer, Temporary, and Vehicle Manufacturer.

These dealer types had a superscript type number (one smaller than the rest of the dies), in this case the 1, which showed the number of plates with the “host number” (in this case DEA-29) issued to the registrant. You can also find the superscript numbers on Equipment in Transit, Courtesy, Vanity, as well as various political officeholder types.

If you have a plate you would like featured as a Plate of the Week, please contact us or put a photo of the plate in our flickr group and drop us a line.

Last week we took a look at a 2008 School Vehicle I sample plate. This week we look at a 1977 vanity plate.

If it wasn’t for the short lived circa 1991 7 character 1979 base vanity plates, the 1977 base vanity plates would be the rarest of the sort, being only issued for about two years. The vanity plates had the same narrow vs. wide die variation in the NEW in New Jersey as found on the passenger plates of the same era. This particular plate has a narrow W and was on the road until about 2004, judging by the May 2004 sticker on the plate.

If you have a plate you would like featured as a Plate of the Week, please contact us or put a photo of the plate in our flickr group and drop us a line.

Last week we took a look at a New Jersey made 2009 Maryland Passenger plate. This week we look at a 2008 School Vehicle I sample plate.

School Vehicle I plates are used on the bigger (class 1) school buses in New Jersey. This sample plate is from 2008 and was ordered over the counter in Trenton, as none were in stock. Often if there is not a plate in stock, you can order one and pay for it right there at the MVC office on State Street and they will mail it to you at no additional cost. Well, assuming you get the right person behind the counter.

The format of these plates always have S1 as the first two or last two of the serial. Oddly, this plate has the format that was first introduced circa 1976-1977. This is an example of many of the sample plates issued by the MVC have previous serial formats often not found on regular issue plates (save for remakes).

If you have a plate you would like featured as a Plate of the Week, please contact us or put a photo of the plate in our flickr group and drop us a line.

Last week we took a look at a 1960 Construction Equipment in Transit plate. This week we look at a New Jersey made 2009 Maryland Passenger plate. It is our first guest submission. We would like to thank Rick Kretschmer for his contribution.

In the summer of 2006, the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup was locked down for three weeks due to inmate unrest and violence. This lockdown resulted in license plate manufacturing operations at the prison to also be shut down for the same period. The Jessup prison normally makes all license plates issued by the state of Maryland.

In response to the shutdown of the plate facility, the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration arranged for the state of New Jersey to manufacture over 30,000 pairs of Maryland license plates. New Jersey complied with the request, but used their own distinctive dies to stamp the plate numbers onto Maryland blanks. New Jersey serial dies, as you know, are usually rather rectangular-shaped, while Maryland dies tend to have more rounded corners. The resulting plates looked much different than normal Maryland plates. (New Jersey plate fans probably think that these Maryland plates actually look better than most.)

The Maryland plates manufactured by New Jersey included nearly 20,000 pairs of passenger car plates with serials ranging from 1CN-A00 to 9CN-Z99, and 15,000 pairs of multipurpose vehicle (MPV) plates with serials between 895M000 and 909M999. (MPV plates are issued to all SUVs, minivans, full-sized passenger vans, motor homes, and privately-owned buses.) Shown above is a Maryland passenger car plate made by the state of New Jersey.

These New Jersey-made MPV plates were issued by Maryland between about October 2006 and January 2007, while the passenger car plates were issued between about November 2006 and February 2007. Since Maryland normally registers personal vehicle types for two year periods, most of these plates were issued with stickers indicating natural expiration dates in late2008 and early 2009.

If you have a plate you would like featured as a Plate of the Week, please contact us or put a photo of the plate in our flickr group and drop us a line.

Last week we took a look at a Prop “1979 Base” New Jersey Passenger plate. This week we look at a 1960 Construction Equipment in Transit plate.

First a bit of an introduction to the type. Construction Equipment in Transit plates are used on pieces of construction equipment that need to be moved from one job site to another.

On the 1959 base, the initial Construction Equipment in Transit plates were dated, as this 1960 example shows. The dated plates only lasted two years and by the issue of the 1963 plates, there was a switch to stickers.

The switch from a yearly issued plate to a mutliyear plate meant that the A-12-³ serial format would have to change a and it did by 1964 when the format changed to an AB-12-³ one.

Thanks to Jim Moini for the 1961 and 1962 plate photos.

If you have a plate you would like featured as a Plate of the Week, please contact us or put a photo of the plate in our flickr group and drop us a line.