Michigan Pure Michigan Plate
2013–presentMichigan · current · “Pure Michigan”
Michigan's default plate, and an advertising campaign that outlived its own advertisement. Pure Michigan began in 2006 as a tourism slogan narrated by Tim Allen; it went onto the number plates seven years later, and the web address printed into the blue wave is the campaign's, not the state government's. The wave is the point: no US state touches more fresh water. 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 2013 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
The Secretary of State's own standard plate listing, which prices all four bases identically (All rights reserved, cited not reproduced). Issue date and serial format (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- AAA 9999
- Material
- Aluminium: stamped serial on screened reflective sheeting
- Source license
- All rights reserved, cited not reproduced
- Reference
- View original