Idaho Scenic Plate
1991–presentIdaho · current · “Famous Potatoes”
Idaho is the only state whose slogan is a crop. FAMOUS POTATOES has run along the foot of its plates since 1957 and is written into Idaho Code, which requires both that phrase and the words Scenic Idaho on the standard plate: the legislature has made it illegal to issue a plate that does not mention potatoes. The mountains behind the serial are the Sawtooths. The plate stopped being stamped in 2008 and is now printed flat. The last character of the serial is a county code, U across most of the state, P in Canyon, V in Ada. The plate shown is a reconstruction carrying an invented serial, so no real registration is depicted.
Still on the road
This is a current issue, first seen in 1991 and still being handed out. Nothing about it is settled history: the serial sequence is still advancing, and the design will only stop where the state decides to replace it.
Printed, not stamped
This plate is smooth. The design is printed onto flat reflective sheeting rather than pressed into the metal. It is what makes photographic backgrounds and fine detail possible at all, and it is the reason a modern plate feels like a sign where an older one feels like a stamping.
Sources
Reference photograph of an issued plate from a collector listing (All rights reserved, cited not reproduced). Issue period, the county-coded serial format and the 2008 change from embossed to flat (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- 9A 9999A
- Material
- Flat aluminium, printed on reflective sheeting
- Source license
- All rights reserved, cited not reproduced
- Reference
- View original