Michigan Water Wonderland Plate
2024–presentMichigan · current · “Water Wonderland”
Green and white, reissued in January 2024 to mark sixty years since Martin Luther King and Walter Reuther led the Walk to Freedom through Detroit. The original ran from 1963, which is why that year was chosen. It is the only current Michigan base whose sheeting is not reflective, so it reads darker at night than every other plate on the road. 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 2024 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 is the Secretary of State's own artwork for the plate, released with the announcement. No photograph of an issued plate could be found: the design is too recent for the collector market, and Michigan plates stay on cars for a decade (All rights reserved, cited not reproduced). Issue date, serial format and the non-reflective sheeting (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- 99AAA9
- Material
- Aluminium: stamped serial on screened non-reflective sheeting
- Source license
- All rights reserved, cited not reproduced
- Reference
- View original