License plate collecting with the Wizard

That does indeed give me pause. Thank you. I think there are counterfeiters that make license plates to order for antique car owners looking for a replica of an old year because they can't find a real one. I think it is legal to use them as long as the car is over 25 years old.

While that Ebay plate looks authentic to me, it is possible I've been fooled. That this counterfeit plate is floating around out there with such a similar number makes me very nervous. For now, I've cancelled my bid.

Quote: AZDuffman

...Wonder how mans cars were even registered in NV that year?

According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, there were 7,160 registered "Motor-cars" in Nevada, not counting dealer's nor manufacturer's licenses. This is the smallest total of all 48 states and the District of Columbia at the time.

Quote: Wizard

That does indeed give me pause. Thank you. I think there are counterfeiters that make license plates to order for antique car owners looking for a replica of an old year because they can't find a real one. I think it is legal to use them as long as the car is over 25 years old.

While that Ebay plate looks authentic to me, it is possible I've been fooled. That this counterfeit plate is floating around out there with such a similar number makes me very nervous. For now, I've cancelled my bid.

Is there a forensic method of verifying the age you can use on a plate? Not much use on a picture though.

Do you also hunt plates by searching for old cars from that date?

Quote: rxwine

Is there a forensic method of verifying the age you can use on a plate? Not much use on a picture though.

That's getting out of my area. I think the experts at spotting fakes look whether the paint colors match what they are supposed to be and certain hand-made touches. A good show for this topic is Antiques Roadshow. Their experts seem to love outing a fake and explain how they figured it out.

Quote:

Do you also hunt plates by searching for old cars from that date?

Nah. I'm not that devout.

Quote: Ayecarumba

This is disturbing:



Why would this replica happen to be a "D" plate, much like the one in the auction?

What are your concerns, Rick?

Is it the authenticity of the plate in the first place or that it may not really be a Dealer plate? Is it being a dealer plate important to you or is the year more important?

A google images search shows only the reproduction picture so I have nothing to go on to figure out the lettering format used that year. One thing we can say is that it is impossible that there were 5500+ dealer plates issued that year, during a major war to boot. So either they did not go back to 0001 each year for dealer plates or they just reserved say the 5000s for dealers. The later is hard to believe for reasons of confusion.

Without another plate to compare it with we cannot guess much about how a regular plate looked. When was the first plate issues in NV? Maybe they started all in year 1 with "A" then "B," etc?


My verdict is that it is not a dealer plate so pay no premium for that.

Nevada didn't use letters on ordinary passenger plates until 1954, when they were used to identify the county. They didn't drop the counties and go to a ABC123 format until 1984.

Upon further thought, I still think the Ebay plate is legitimate. I think for the replica they found an image of it somewhere and flipped the 9 to make a 6. I'm quite sure the D stands for dealer.

Quote: rxwine

Is there a forensic method of verifying the age you can use on a plate?

According to TV, you just call your buddy who knows everything there is to know about this stuff :)

Seriously, I've no idea if one can tell the age of paint or rust through any kind of test. But the ingredients for paint have changed through the years, so that might help. Also painting metal is different than painting other materials, like plaster or wood, and different types of paint are used. Knowing how things were made in the 1910s should also help.

I suppose it's complicated.

Quote: Wizard

Nevada didn't use letters on ordinary passenger plates until 1954, when they were used to identify the county. They didn't drop the counties and go to a ABC123 format until 1984.

Upon further thought, I still think the Ebay plate is legitimate. I think for the replica they found an image of it somewhere and flipped the 9 to make a 6. I'm quite sure the D stands for dealer.

I'm not the expert here, I would just still wonder why the high (5000s) number. The replica did probably take an easy out.

Here is an image from the ALPCA archives on Nevada dealer plates. I tend to think whoever made them ran off a series of dealer plates starting with 55. Why, I don't know. Maybe nobody does. There are all kinds of unanswered questions about license plates whose answers are lost with the passage of time. It also mentions in 1916, the first year Nevada issued license plates, dealer plates ended in 00 or 50. Why some don't, again, I'm not sure. Probably they dropped that rule for new plates but they let people keep their same numbers who started in 1916.

Quote: Wizard

Here is an image from the ALPCA archives on Nevada dealer plates. I tend to think whoever made them ran off a series of dealer plates starting with 55. Why, I don't know. Maybe nobody does. There are all kinds of unanswered questions about license plates whose answers are lost with the passage of time. It also mentions in 1916, the first year Nevada issued license plates, dealer plates ended in 00 or 50. Why some don't, again, I'm not sure. Probably they dropped that rule for new plates but they let people keep their same numbers who started in 1916.

Can't read the link, password protected.

It is possible "55" was either high enough to not be confused with other plates (same as the RR SS#s were set up) or the machine was set up and that is where they started. Is curious that the Dealer #s ended not started with 00-50 as that seems hard to set up for long, continuous runs.