WWII Vehicle Number or Tag Plates

[General Apathy]

 

Prior to WWII each year in the states a vehicle had a new ' Tag ' plate stamped, that years date was also incorporated into the plate to show the vehicle was legal for the road. The plate I am showing here is dated 1942, however to save on metal for war production after 1942, a reduced size section of the plate was stamped with just the new years date and it was bolted ontop of the original plate on the vehicle.

 

So the original plate shown was made and stamped for 1942, for 1943 a smaller date plate was stamped out to cover the 1942 on the original plate. For 1944 the 1943 plate has been moved over to the left-hand side and rivited, and the new 44 dated one now covers the 1942. These small date plates also have a numbered code stamped in them to stop forgeries being made. Cheers ( Lewis )

[Jason G]

As a Md resident, I can really appreciate those! I have a few of the tabs, but my relatives used the old license plates from that time to patch holes in the smokehouse! They are still there....but if I take em down, the building will come down with them!

 

BTW, Md went back to issuing plates with 'hard' dates on them, and didn't stop until the 1980's if I recall correctly. At one time, Md tags all expired right around the same time period, within a month of each other or so.

 

Now, they issue the sticky decals that expire every two years.

 

Oh, yeah...if you have a vehicle that dates from that time period, you can actually register it using those tags and legally run it on the highway.