Maryland Proud Plate
2016–presentMaryland · current
Maryland has the only state flag in America taken from a family coat of arms, the black and gold of the Calverts quartered with the red and white of the Crosslands, and it is loud enough that the plate simply lets it fill the bottom half and adds nothing else. There is no slogan: the two previous bases carried web addresses along the foot and this one dropped them without replacement. 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 2016 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.
Half stamped, half printed
Run a thumb across this plate and only the serial answers. The registration is still pressed into the metal the old way, while the state name, the slogan and any artwork are printed flat onto the reflective sheeting around it. Most plates issued in America today are made like this: the part that must be legible at speed and survive a decade of weather is stamped, and the part that carries the state's personality is printed, because printing can do colour and detail that a press cannot.
Sources
Reference photograph of an issued plate (CC BY-SA 4.0, Zcarstvnz). Issue date and serial format (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- 9AA9999
- Material
- Aluminium: stamped serial on screened reflective sheeting
- Source license
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Reference
- View original