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This page illustrates some of the license plate-related projects I'm either currently working on, or am planning to start some time in the future. In most cases I don't yet have web pages for these plate categories. These various projects are ordered roughly according to priority or likelihood of ever happening. Latest noteworthy updates to this page
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On this page
Moved to their own web pages |
It seems that no matter how much I try, I never manage to get completely caught up in making updates to the various pages on this site. Sometimes I'm pretty close, and other times I have quite a backlog of updates that need to be made. Anyway, at any given point in time, I almost certainly have a number of new plates in my collection, new candid photos I've taken of plates in current use, and additional plate photos contributed by others, that haven't yet made it onto the appropriate web pages.
(I've decided to stop showing "plates that I've recently photographed and/or edited in preparation for being included on one of my web pages" in this section. Almost always, I was just posting pics of plates that I had already recently added to the site, and sometimes months would go by before I'd change the pics here. Instead, I now have a new page called Recent Site Updates where I show a few of the very newest plate photos I've added. I pledge to keep that page current.)
My daughter-in-law recently graduated from dental school and is now in private practice. With her encoragement, I've acquired a bunch of plates related to dentistry and oral health for the purpose of making a display for her waiting room or office. I'll also make a web page featuring these same plates so that everyone can enjoy them.
As time permits, I continue researching and documenting the history of additional Pennsylvania plate types, and create new web pages to present my photos and research. I'm steadily assembling a photo library of various types of Pennsylvania non-passenger plates, including photos of plates I've acquired for my own collection, photos of plates in others' collections, and plates in actual use. Probably the next page Pennsylvania plate history page I create will address sample, prototype, and blank plates.
(1962 and 1968 plates were once in my trade box.)
I don't collect Virginia plates, and I don't know if I ever will. However, in 2015 I was presented with the opportunity to photograph roughly 50 years of Virginia passenger car plates spanning the 1940s through the 1980s. I created a Virginia passenger car plate gallery page on which to show them, plus photos of a few other stray Virginia passenger car plates from my collection and elsewhere. Since I've lived in states adjacent to Virginia for nearly my entire life, I'm quite familar with them, and so I then developed my first installment of a written history of Virginia passenger car plates on a Virginia passenger car plate history, 1971-present page. Now, the obvious next project is to finish documenting the history of Virginia passenger car plates on a second page covering 1906-1970. I might have to initially just cover 1933-1970 plates, as I don't have photos of anything any older than that just yet.
I'm working on acquiring one of every year of Illinois passenger car plates, and I already show them on my Illinois passenger car plate gallery page. Eventually, I'll also document the history of these plates, like I already have for several other states. This kind of project keeps me involved with license plates even when my plate fund runs dry and I can't buy any more plates for my collection.
U.S. Forces in Germany plate designs used from 1973-1983, 1983-1998, and 1989-2002.
(Green plate and solid white plate were once in my trade box.)
U.S. Forces in Germany plates were issued to members of the U.S. military for use on their personal vehicles while stationed in (West) Germany between 1946 and 2005. Today, they're not used while in Germany, but are issued as temporary plates for the personal vehicles of service members returning from Germany, to give them time to get their vehicles registered in a U.S. state.
It's not that I have any burning desire to collect these plates. I didn't serve in the military and I've never been to Germany. However, these plates are pretty easy to find in the U.S., as many service members brought them home and/or kept them as souvenirs, and from 1962 and the present, they've only had "USA" as the jursidiction name, with nothing to indicate their use or purpose. People who aren't plate collectors or who are newbie plate collectors are therefore constantly asking me to explain these plates when they come across them. I've concluded that the easiest way to reduce the repetitive questions is to create a page that shows and explains these plates.
1990 Maryland fleet trailer sticker;
1992 Maryland alternate color sticker used on Treasure the Chesapeake specialty plates;
2009 Maryland "smart sticker" pilot program sticker;
Maryland fleet trailer month sticker;
Maryland historic vehicle permanent registration sticker.
I have an existing page called "General Information about Maryland license plates" that included information about vehicle class codes, plate expiration stickers, sample plates and error plates and other oddities. I'd badly neglected this page for many years. My intention was to split this page out into several separate pages, and to add new info and photos as I created each new page. The first two of these, the sample and prototype plate page, and the license plate errors and oddities page, have been finished for some time now.
I do still intend to create a page devoted solely to Maryland year and month plate stickers. I've been putting this off for years now, mainly because I need to take close-up photos of the stickers on many Maryland plates in my collection, and I find photo-editing plate stickers to be particularly tedious. However, I'm determined not to let any new or currently lower-priority project become a higher priority than this one. Stay tuned.
I've created pages to show my nearly complete set of U.S. 1977 passenger car plates and my just-getting-started set of U.S. 1977 non-passenger plates, but I figure someday I'll also have a third page for U.S. 1977 motorcycle plates. I'm not actively looking for these, but I've somehow managed to acquire these few so far. Pennsylvania used an undated, unstickered motorcycle plate in 1977.
Don't hate me because I have a booster plate on a license plate web site! I acquired the front booster plate promoting a church shown above, and decided that I should start collecting these in addition to actual license plates. So, I'm now looking for additional front booster plates promoting specific Christian denominations, churches, schools, and organizations. (I'm not looking for generic Christian novelty plates that you could buy at a Christian bookstore.)
The 1978-79 plate was for a state government vehicle; the 2000 plate was issued to a recreational trailer.
I'm not really looking for them, but as I happen to acquire various Illinois non-passenger, special interest, and special event plates, I'm hanging on to them rather than putting them into my trade box. At some point in the future, I may start actively collecting these.
The colorful and patriotic Michigan 1976 base plate, which was generally used through 1978, has always intrigued me. I'm thinking that someday I might want to try to collect each Michigan plate type issued on this base. So far, I just have the passenger car plate, at left, and one of several versions of non-profit organization vehicle plates, at right. Non-profit plates and government vehilce plates on this base were used through the mid-1980s.
I've collected God-themed special interest plates and church-related plate types for some time now. So far I've mostly resisted collecting vanity plates with Christian messages or biblical references, as I'm generally bored by vanity plates. I had this one God vanity that someone gave me, but I must admit I did buy this John 3:16 vanity that I came across. Someday, I may become more intentional about seeking these out.
>Pennsylvania limited edition plate commemorating the ratification of the U.S. Constitution (plate in actual use);
1991 Illinois special event plate commemorating the ratification of the Bill of Rights.
I've long toyed with the idea of collecting plates related to the U.S. Constitution. There are actually only a few kinds of these, but two of them are rather scarce and pricey. I didn't know this Illinois special event plate even existed until I saw it on someone's sale table at a plate meet; now it's mine.
Someday, but not anytime soon, I'd like to start collecting plates from the District of Columbia. I lived in various Maryland suburbs in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, and saw D.C. plates on the road regularly, for over 20 years.
If I ever decide to start up an online license plate store, I've always wanted to use the name "Plate Daddy" for it. However, for several years, someone else owned the rights to the web domain name www.platedaddy.com, though they never actually used it for a web site. In June 2008, I discovered that this domain name had once again become available, and so I immediately claimed it for myself.
I can't say when or even if I'll ever actually open a license plate store for business, but at least now I have the most obvious and intuitive web site address to go with the name I want to use.
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