California 1963 Black Plate
1963–1969California · base
The one people picture. Gold on black, issued from 1963 to 1969, and so bound up with the cars of those years that California eventually brought it back as a paid legacy option: a driver today can order this design for fifty dollars and forty a year, which makes it the only retired California plate you can still buy. The original is the standard issue everybody simply got. The plate shown is a reconstruction carrying an invented serial, so no real registration is depicted.
One plate, several years
This design served from 1963 to 1969 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.
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 (CC BY-SA 4.0, Absecon 49). Issue period, serial format, and the later paid legacy reissue under Vehicle Code 5004.3 (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- AAA 999
- Material
- Embossed aluminium with reflective sheeting
- Source license
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Reference
- View original