Montana Big Sky Plate
2012–presentMontana · current · “Big Sky”
A reissue of the 1991 design, and one of four historic plates Montana lets a driver order today at no extra cost: state law simply says a standard plate may be any design first issued in 1989 or later, which turned three decades of retired artwork into a standing menu. Big Sky Country was coined as a tourism slogan in 1962 and has outlasted every campaign built on it. 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 2012 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 (CC BY-SA 4.0, Cmhudda). The statutory rule allowing any design first issued in 1989 or later, and the serial format (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- 9-AA9999
- Material
- Flat aluminium, printed on reflective sheeting
- Source license
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Reference
- View original