South Dakota Mount Rushmore Plate
2023–presentSouth Dakota · current · “Great Faces. Great Places.”
The fourth consecutive South Dakota plate to show Mount Rushmore, which the state has put on its number plates in one form or another for most of a century. The number before the space is the county: the nine most populous ranked by their 1950s size, then the rest alphabetically. Several arrangements of letters and digits run side by side in different counties, so the shape of a serial says where a car is registered rather than when. 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 2023 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 date, the county numbering and the several concurrent serial arrangements (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- 9AA 999
- Material
- Flat aluminium, printed on reflective sheeting
- Source license
- All rights reserved, cited not reproduced
- Reference
- View original