Reproduction vintage license plates?

av8 · May 21, 2004, 01:15:38 PM

Does anyone know of a company or companies that make reproduction vintage license plates? I wan to register my F-1 with YOM plates but California Commercial plates are difficult to find, particularly so in pairs and in good condition.

I've found a couple excellent single plates . . . just need someone to re-pop one.

TIA

Mike

HotRodLadyCrusr · May 21, 2004, 01:50:10 PM

Could you do it yourself? Find the letters/numbers you need then weld it all together and paint it? Just a thought. I think KustomBuilder is trying to gather the letters for a old personal plate for CherryBlossoms bug.

Dennis the Menace · May 21, 2004, 06:01:08 PM

Mike. Here is some info for you.
Dennis

http://www.io.com/~dork/bolthole/yom.html

http://www.davesclp.com/

unklian · May 21, 2004, 06:14:28 PM

I've heard of a place in Florida that repops metal plates.
But that's all I know.

purplepickup · May 21, 2004, 06:45:22 PM

Mike, it seems like I saw a post by Roadstar on the HAMB a while back where he said he knew a guy by him that could make custom plates.

I did a quick search and ran across a few sites where you can design your own but they're flat, not embossed. I read on a couple of them that it isn't legal to exactly duplicate the official state plates. Here's one I made with the software on one of the sites.

av8 · May 21, 2004, 08:48:16 PM

Quote from: "purplepickup"Mike, it seems like I saw a post by Roadstar on the HAMB a while back where he said he knew a guy by him that could make custom plates.

I did a quick search and ran across a few sites where you can design your own but they're flat, not embossed. I read on a couple of them that it isn't legal to exactly duplicate the official state plates. Here's one I made with the software on one of the sites.

Thanks for the links, guys.
George, would you please post the address for the site?
TIA

I was discussing metal embossing with one of the partners at Creative Concepts yesterday and mentioned passing on a perfect '47 Commercial plate for fifty bucks last Sunday because it was a single. "You should have bought it and made a set of dies from metalized filler," he said, and went on to say that the work is easily done and the material to use is 24-gauge aluminum. Exact visual duplicate of the original . . . *, I wish I'd known about that on Sunday!
Mike

Bib_Overalls · May 21, 2004, 09:18:53 PM

Mike,

This would never happen to you. But if I bought a single plate at a swap meet and duplicated a second I would most certainly find out that the missing plate had also been duplicated and registered. And no one in officialdom would think it was funny.

Fortunately for me Arkansas is a single plate state and YOM plates are not authorized. Otherwise I would be tempted.

av8 · May 21, 2004, 10:16:28 PM

Quote from: "Bib_Overalls"Mike,

This would never happen to you. But if I bought a single plate at a swap meet and duplicated a second I would most certainly find out that the missing plate had also been duplicated and registered. And no one in officialdom would think it was funny.

Fortunately for me Arkansas is a single plate state and YOM plates are not authorized. Otherwise I would be tempted.

Thanks for the best laugh of the day! With my Pollyana outlook on life, that hadn't even occurred to me, but it's a real possibility for sure, isn't it?

I'd better be extra careful or I could find myself in the full-time business of making license plates for the State of California! :cry:

purplepickup · May 21, 2004, 11:05:54 PM

Quote from: "av8"George, would you please post the address for the site?

The site I made the plate on is here.
They have over 100 different fonts. I used "metrostyle" font for the
"19 CALIFORNIA 48" and the "HOTROD STATE"; and Arial Black for the big letters.
Once you make a text box you can drag or stretch it however you want.

32tom · May 22, 2004, 08:03:54 AM

Quote from: "av8"Does anyone know of a company or companies that make reproduction vintage license plates? I wan to register my F-1 with YOM plates but California Commercial plates are difficult to find, particularly so in pairs and in good condition.

I've found a couple excellent single plates . . . just need someone to re-pop one.

TIA

Mike

This is an aluminum repro from the company in Florida. He advertizes in the color pages of Hemmings. I wanted 1951 but he did not have the dies for that year. The shape is different.

SKR8PN · May 22, 2004, 10:37:39 AM

Mike .....here is an idea I came up with awhile back. I wanted a set of vanity plates,but in the YOM,so I am MAKING some..........I cut the lettering out of my vanity plates and welded them into a pair of 1938 Ohio plates I had.A little bondo,a little primer......... Probably illegal as all get out,hey,you only go round ONCE!!!

unklian · May 22, 2004, 04:48:07 PM

Do you need to submit your plates to the DMV,
for their official blessings?

They just might notice that they were Aluminum.

Unless you used some Instant Rust,on the back,to make them a little more convincing.

tom36 · May 22, 2004, 06:46:25 PM

[I found this web site, http://www.licenseplates.tv/, but I know nothing about them, Tom..

av8 · May 22, 2004, 09:07:30 PM

Quote from: "unklian"Do you need to submit your plates to the DMV,
for their official blessings?

They just might notice that they were Aluminum.

Unless you used some Instant Rust,on the back,to make them a little more convincing.

I'd have to stamp the plate in steel for sure. The tough part is the paint; we're not allowed to repaint plates even if the colors are correct! I could play dumb and repaint the original as well and explain that I restored them, and gosh I'm just as sorry as all get-out . . .

Carps · May 25, 2004, 01:45:22 AM

As usual I'm late, but you guys all expect that anyhow dontcha?

Some neato ideas on doing hard to find plates. I have a set of what appear to be gennie California plates for my '33. Took a fibreglass mould off an orginal Cal plate and another of the letters on the real plates. A little trimming and adjustment, some filler and sanding and 'voila' a mould for making as many plates as I can from fibreglass, painted and detailed, mounted in vintage frames, it's impossible to tell they are not gennie plates.

Regarding duplicates, recently I was billed by our local tollway operators for driving my '33 on the tollway without it being fitted with the appropriate 'etag' (that's the little gizmo on the windscreen that registers the car to pay tolls as you drive) being attached.

Their records had my '33 travelling up and down the western link (which is about as far from home as I ever travel by car) four times a day for aver a month. I pointed out that not only was my car 00-1933 (early vanity plate with the first two numbers sepatrated from the four others, but note I said numbers) never on their tollway but it was also quite distinctive so I'd like to the the photographs. So a month later what arrived in the mail? A loveley picture of a blue (same colour as my old gal) Ford Transit Van, registered number OOI-934. That's a normal license plate with three letters and three numbers.

I've since recieved a full refund and appology.