All of the 8,291 License Plates in America

September 10, 2023 4:44 PM

States now offer a vast menu of personalized plate options for a dizzying array of organizations, professions, sports teams, causes and other groups.

Yes, license plates are still made by cheap prison labor in most states. 80% of all license plates issued in the U.S. today were made by state prisoners, with only 12 states opting out of the practice. According to a 2022 ACLU report on prison labor in the U.S., many states offer no pay at all to prisoners, while the average hourly wage across the country was between 13 and 52 cents per hour.

posted by Etrigan (34 comments total)

What's really fun about these plates is that nobody is really checking all the possibilities, until it's too late.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:01 PM on September 10, 2023

How Michigan License Plates are Made.
posted by clavdivs at 5:07 PM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

I moved out of the US almost thirty years ago, and I am amazed by the explosion in custom plate designs. I took a peek at North Carolina plates and yep, there are a lot of NASCAR themed ones. But what really shocked me was their willingness to put out-of-state colleges on the plates. I understand something like Clemson on a NC plate, but Auburn? Michigan?!?! Have they no shame?
posted by thecjm at 5:26 PM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

My province apparently offers 69, not counting the Veterans plates which are not shown on their website. Somewhat oddly, one of the eligibility criteria for veterans plates is if you served in the American army during Vietnam, but only if you were a Canadian citizen at the time.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:28 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

And I the only one that assumed that many of the professional association (first responder, fire fighter, police benevolent association, etc), Mason/Shriner/Odd Fellows, and veteran plates are there to signal "don't give me a ticket" to the police?
posted by thecjm at 5:29 PM on September 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

I love that the needle on the gauge featured on the New York State Conference of Operating Engineers plate points to 420. Well done. "We Build And Maintain," indeed.

(FWIW, I don't think I have ever seen a single one of the NYS picture plates in the wild. They've got to be losing money on this.)
posted by phooky at 5:44 PM on September 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

Among the specialty plates available in Massachusetts are three different Patriots plates: Super Bowl Champions, 5X Super Bowl Champions and 6X Super Bowl Champions. Based on their performance tonight, doesn't look like the series will be updated this season.
posted by adamg at 6:00 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wait, there are only three Maryland Barbershop Quartet Singer plates issued? That’s not even a quorum.
posted by smelendez at 6:02 PM on September 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

I've noticed this proliferation, since I see so many plates now where you wouldn't know what state it is unless you look closely.

I took a peek at North Carolina plates and yep, there are a lot of NASCAR themed ones. But what really shocked me was their willingness to put out-of-state colleges on the plates. I understand something like Clemson on a NC plate, but Auburn? Michigan?!?! Have they no shame?

As an outsider, that seems odd.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:15 PM on September 10, 2023

I drove across the country last month and Montana had a dizzying array of license plates. They largely weren't, uh, themed plates, but rather they either permanently offer several "standard" choices or they like really like redesigning the license plate.

While I personally prefer licenses plates without much in the way of graphics, I do miss the Texas plates with the space shuttle and the little cowboy.
posted by hoyland at 6:19 PM on September 10, 2023

Of course the coolest plate from North America - possibly the world - is the Canadian North West Territories polar bear shaped plate. The original won the Best New Plate of the Year (1970) award from the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association.

Since 1954, ALPCA has promoted license plate collecting and research, the exchange of information and plates, and the fraternal benefits of sharing a common interest with others throughout the world. With over 2,800 members from 50 states and 19 countries, ALPCA is the largest license plate hobbyist organization in the world.

posted by Mitheral at 6:35 PM on September 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

Pearl Jam is on a tour right now and along with the usual insanity of merch that is a custom t-shirt and a custom poster for each night, they're also doing custom fake license plates. They're customized to the state each concert is played in, and they read PRL JAM.

Their fan club merch this year was a fake WA state license plate with TEN CLB on it.

It's one of the more unique and sort of fun tour merch things I've seen in my decades of going to shows.
posted by hippybear at 6:38 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Colorado started offering black plates as a "throwback" design and it seems to be super popular. I see them all over the place now.
posted by jazon at 6:39 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Relatedly, yesterday I saw one of those "sovereign citizen" cars with not just a fake hand-lettered license plate, but also a row of fake license plates across the back window. So there is the DIY option for licensing your car, too.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:01 PM on September 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

How many states still do that tacky thing of putting the URL for their bureau of tourism on standard issue plates? I know my home state of Minnesota is one.

Is that advertising meant for your own residents? Or is it targeting folks in other states who'll see the plates, ironically, when your people have to drive elsewhere due to a dearth of fun stuff at home? Not the best brand ambassadors for your state's tourism industry if you ask me.
posted by theory at 7:44 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Look, I'm just glad that Minnesota let me put a loon and bees on my cars' plates, instead of taunting me with a horny toad plate and never actually delivering it the way Texas did. The current default Texas plate is the most boring thing I cannot even.
posted by sciatrix at 8:09 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

>How many states still do that tacky thing of putting the URL for their bureau of tourism on standard issue plates?

Just a couple months ago a domain expired that Maryland had on a large number of license plates commemorating the War of 1812. It then started pointing at a gambling website in the Philippines, it has since been reclaimed, but should be a warning to any locale putting non governmental urls onto plates.
posted by borkencode at 9:25 PM on September 10, 2023

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
posted by not_on_display at 9:48 PM on September 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

The article's list omitted the new digital license plates available in California--I've seen a handful of these on my recent California to Arizona roadtrip.

The plates can shift from light mode with black text to dark mode with white text.
posted by JDC8 at 10:01 PM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Arizona has a bunch of different plates I have the Route 66 plate and my wife has the pet plate that funds spay and neuter programs.

But the best “oh man whoever checked this plate request at the MVD is NOT internet savvy” moment I’ve seen involved this plate. The plate read “GOATS3”
posted by azpenguin at 10:09 PM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

This makes me chuckle. I was once pulled over driving through Texas (speeding by a little bit but no more than the dozens of cars around me.) The officer said it was illegal to have a license plate holder - I never removed the one the dealer put on when I bought the car - because it obscured the name of the state on my license plate. Because, after all, Texas is a "border state." We were outside of Dallas, nowhere near the Mexican border.

Now obviously this guy was just pulling me over because I was driving an older car with Illinois plates and he suspected we were drug mules or something. He didn't end up giving us a ticket. But it is kind of hilarious that he was so adamant they be able to read the name of the state on the license plate when there are all these personalized plates that would seem to make it much harder to tell at a glance which state they are from.
posted by misskaz at 5:19 AM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Of all the plates I've spotted, this one is by far my favorite specialty plate with subversive personalization applied. Today's date makes this especially apt
posted by adamrice at 7:50 AM on September 11, 2023

The article's list omitted the new digital license plates available in California

So when you're criming you can skip swapping plates to hack one of these.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:29 AM on September 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

The officer said it was illegal to have a license plate holder

This is, sadly, a law in Texas. Like you, I have always assumed it was a BS law used just to pull over anyone they felt like.

There is was a voluntary program called HEAT - Help End Automobile Theft. If you put that sticker on your car, the police could pull you over for no reason between 2 and 6 a.m. to ensure you were the owner of the car. Surely, that wasn't ever used to get DUI arrests.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 8:29 AM on September 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think they've discontinued it, but Alabama's "Atomic Nuked Veteran" plate had both delightfully bizarre phrasing ("Nuked", eh?), and rather daunting eligibility requirements (you had to actually be exposed to radiation from a nuclear test to qualify).
posted by jackbishop at 8:40 AM on September 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Is there a George W Bush commemorative plate? You could personalize it with DID911
posted by slogger at 9:01 AM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

I had this goofy thought once that it would be funny to pay for a custom plate that was a random string. Sort of a meta-thing.

I had my first car for 20 years, and a few years ago I finally needed to get new one, and I wanted to keep the old plate. Partly for sentimental reasons, maybe more so because I finally learned to remember it.

Nonetheless I was issued a new plate when I got the car,. I went to the MVD said I wanted to keep the old one. They that I can do that but that the old plate number would be treated as a custom plate. There was just a one-time fee for this (I had always assumed they made this a recurring fee to milk people), so of course I did that.

Later I realized that this plate, when originally issued, was essentially a random string.

I got that random custom plate after all. :)
posted by Ayn Marx at 9:43 AM on September 11, 2023

Those organizations receive money generated by the sale of the plates. For example, Auburn uses license plate money to fund scholarships. So, alums in other places often choose to support their alma mater in this way.
posted by SinAesthetic at 9:51 AM on September 11, 2023

I do remember being a kid on road trips in the Seventies, when license plates were standardized by state and each state had its own color combination, of doing license plate bingo and learning to identify each state just by the colors.

Those simpler times are lost to us now, like tears in rain.
posted by hippybear at 11:23 AM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’ve always wondered what the least popular custom plate was. Primarily so I could order it and get a license plate number of 2*


*”Damn Roosevelt.”
posted by leotrotsky at 1:02 PM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

One day, everyone in the world will have their own niche license plate... and an NHL expansion team!
posted by not_on_display at 3:00 PM on September 11, 2023

Another way to increase the number of plates available would be to count the states that allow you to purchase and use vintage plates as long as they match the Year of Manufacture for the car. I just bought some for a friend's classic car.
posted by shenkerism at 3:35 PM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well, and different states have different license plate laws, too. Some states, the plate is attached to the person so if you sell the car you keep the plates and in theory could get them onto another vehicle in the future. In other states, the plates are attached to the car, so if you sell you car there's a whole "transfer of license plate" thing that has to go on.
posted by hippybear at 3:40 PM on September 11, 2023

Handy! In MT the yellow “donna wanna be trodonna” plate is an easy signifier for “drives like a privileged jerk, best avoided” and is universally true in my experience.
posted by GrandPunkRailroad at 10:06 PM on September 11, 2023