California 1945 Wartime Plate
1945–1946California · base
Issued in the last year of the war and then revalidated for 1946 with a tab rather than replaced, because steel was still short. California had spent the war years doing exactly this, running one base and dating it with a small stamped tab bolted to the plate, which is the practice it had invented for entirely different reasons thirty years earlier. The plate shown is a reconstruction carrying an invented serial, so no real registration is depicted.
One plate, several years
This design served from 1945 to 1946 rather than for a single year. A plate that stays on a car across several registrations cannot date itself, so the year is proved separately, by a tab or sticker in the earlier period and by a windscreen sticker later. It is the opposite arrangement to the annual plates, where the plate WAS the registration.
Before the standard
This plate is long and shallow rather than the familiar oblong, roughly 13.4 by 5 inches. The uniform 6 by 12 inch size was settled later through the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, and until it was, plates were sized to each state's own taste. That is why one of these will not sit in a modern frame.
Stamped, not printed
Every character here is pressed into the metal and stands proud of the surface, along with the raised rim just inside the edge. Run a hand across it and you feel the whole design. The plate was struck from flat stock in a press, then the raised faces were rolled with paint, which is why wear shows first on the tops of the characters.
Sources
Reference photograph of an issued plate (Public domain, Nctriadguy). Issue period, the 1946 tab revalidation and the serial format (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- 9A 99 99
- Material
- Embossed steel
- Source license
- Public domain
- Reference
- View original