License Plates

I know Virginia has a lighthouse plate



How many other states have something similar? Does anyone have one of these plates? As far as I can tell, Maryland does not have anything like that, although they have numerous of what they call "Organizational Plates"

Michigan has a very nice plate featuring White Shoal in northern Lake Michigan.
My wifes plate reads FLW5S and mine is SHOAL.Good plate for a sailor.

Dan

NJ has 2 of them now...
Here is the first one:

http://www.state.nj.us/mvc/Vehicle/ShoreToPlease.htm

Here is the second one:

http://www.lighthousedepot.com/digest/Photopage.cfm?Photo=306

BB

Massachusetts has the "Cape & Islands" plate which features a picture of Nauset Light.

Bob

Washington has a lighthouse plate. I was able to see this great looking plate on Ladybug's car when I went to WA last week for my stay at New Dungeness, and swung by Mukilteo for a personal tour she provided for me and my fellow travelers.

Washington Lighthouse license plates

States that we can recall seeing are:

New Jersey (2 designs)
Virginia
Michigan
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Delaware
North Carolina
Ohio
New York
Washington

Just approved for next year is Pennsylvania, featuring Presque Isle.

The Washington state one featuring Admiralty Head is gorgeous. Ann got me one for my birthday that had never been used (no stickers on it), and it was in mint condition.

Jim

If lightships also count - I know a license plate from Delaware showing the Overfalls Lightship:

http://www.overfalls.org/detail.cfm?newsID=31

Kind regards
Iris

So far we've got

The Overfalls plate is, of course, just an 'advertising' plate, not an official license.

Here are some samples collected in 1998. Some may have changed designs, some states may have more than one design available. That Michigan plate belongs to one of our members.

www.HarbourLightsArchives.com/license_plates/

I didn't catch that the Overfalls plate wasn't official.

The Ohio, NY and Virginia ones look different from those on JChidester's list. I'm not sure if that is my error or if the plates have changed. I like the old Virginia one better, if they have changed it.

The Mass, CT, Delaware, and one of the NJ ones look the same.

Some of those might be good Collector's Forum headers

Sorry for the advertising plate of the Overfalls lightship. I didn´t know that there is a difference between the official and the advertising lighthouse plates of the States - but all of them are really wonderful. Our license plates are all official and they are just white with black letters and will never have a lighthouse or other nice things on it

The Ohio plate shown is the anniversary plate for the Toledo Harbor Light and is the one we have. The most common Ohio lighthouse plate is the Marblehead one. We chose the Toledo plate because it is the least common. The other Ohio plate shown is of the Perry Monument.

Tom

These plates are lovely. I agree with Iris. I wish we could get more inventive with the number plates.

Here's an interesting point about both NJ Lighthouse License Plates- officially they are not commerating a lighthouse.

The one with the Tuckerton Seaport Replica is to commerate the entire Baymaen and Decoy community and the Lighthouse is just the symbol they happen to use at this point in time.

The other plate is officially called the "Shore to Please" License plate and the lighthouse on it is not a true rendition of Barnegat which is often used as a symbol of the Jersey shore.

Of course none of this matteres to Lighthouse Wackos- they are Lighthouse Liscense plates to us and the rest is immaterial.

I don't care for the Shore to Please plate. I think the depiction of the lighthouse on it is terrible- IMHO. I have the Baymane's Heritage plate on my car.

Dennis

I have 14 plates in my collection. I have found the purchasing them can be quite expensive. I have seen these plates, depending on stste, go for $150 a pop . Because of this, there are several I don't have in my collection. I do see where Virginia has a new plate and I will send off for a sample version of it. New York however, does not have or at lest sell sample plates. Have fun and enjoy what you can get .

Read about this one recently ...



http://www.discoverpi.com/content/view/351/201/

You can search on E-Bay under Lighthouse License Plates and I just found 5 from $5.00 to $49.95

I'm kind of a member of the plate community...as I think I've mentioned before. So I can give a little insight on the whole lighthouse-plate-collecting concept.

Some plate people (including me), won't purchase on eBay, except in bulk. First off, if the plate isn't older than 5 years, it can't be sold on eBay due to eBay policy. Secondly, the prices tend to be jacked up compared to the community rate, and shipping is exorbitant for what is, in essence, a sheet of metal.

Another thing...lighthouse plates are "specialty plates." They're quite rare in the collector's pool, as they aren't as widely distributed as the regular-issue plates, and the amount in the trading supply is very small. Thus, specialty plates can easily cost $50-100 or more. A lot of lighthouse plates are especially rare, or only issued to certain regions or people, etc., and most collectors, even those who specialise in a region, might not have one themselves.

Plate collecting's a fun hobby...but it's easy to get pulled into fast. I started out with the "plate from every state" thing as a cool thing to decorate my walls with, and now got kind of sucked into it. I have to be really careful - I get really out of hand sometimes, even with the passenger issues I collect.

Of course, there's always the screwdriver method...that's frowned upon, though.

I'd personally like to get a set of the Baymen's Hertiage plates on my car...it's worth $50 initial fee to me. Plus, since it's harder to figure out the lettering system on them (as opposed to the regular-issue VAA-00A, which you can figure out is brand-new when it graces every brand-new car you see), so maybe it'll avoid a little bit of the stigma that might arise from a brand-new plate on a 17-year-old BMW. Most times when I see that kind of situation, my instincts of "new driver" are correct. I know that some people stigmatise that, so even though it's true, I'd like to avoid the profiling.

Yes, I am paranoid. I know.

I'm also a registration plate collector of sorts. I have numerous lighthouse license plates thanks to being in the right place at the right time, and also being very well taken care of by a fellow CF member.

I do not have the Massachusetts "Cape & Islands" plate on any of my vehicles. I'm a creature of habit and getting such a plate would mean giving up one of the three plates I have (521 on Lorna's Envoy, R9M on my Dodge Ram Pickup, NORTH on my Vette) or buying and registering a fourth vehicle.

When it comes time to retire, I may be forced to go back to two vehicles and more than likely I would give up the "R9M" plate. I'm hoping I will be able to pass it on to one of my sons. I've had the NORTH plate since 1966, and the 521 plate was passed on to me by a friend who has sinced passed away.

I have boxes of plates from different states stored in my cellar. I also collected a lot of vanity or names plates from different states. I guess this will be stock for eBay sales some day along with all that "new old stock" of Lionel Trains also stored in the cellar.

Bob

Here is a picture of my own New York license plate

[img]http://publish.hometown.aol.com/thelightkeeper/myhomepage/1000337.jpg?mtbrand=AOL_US[/img]

Bob, in Virginia, I've been able to transfer my special number or "message" from vehicle to vehicle and have also changed style of plates from the VA Realtor plate to the VA Chesapeake plate to the VA lighthouse plate. I've been told by auto dealers that this couldn't be done, and I've told them that if I couldn't transfer the plate, that it would be a deal killer. Got my way!

Judy