Texas 1923 Base Plate
1923–1924Texas · base
White on black, and the first Texas plate to split its serial with a star, the device the state has come back to ever since. TEXAS now reads up both edges rather than an abbreviation up one, and the six digits are grouped in threes. Like the plate before it this one carries no year and served two years rather than one. The plate shown is a reconstruction carrying an invented serial, so no real registration is depicted.
One plate, several years
This design served from 1923 to 1924 rather than for a single year. A plate that stays on a car across several registrations cannot date itself, so the year is proved separately, by a tab or sticker in the earlier period and by a windscreen sticker later. It is the opposite arrangement to the annual plates, where the plate WAS the registration.
Before the standard
This plate is long and shallow rather than the familiar oblong, roughly 13.4 by 5 inches. The uniform 6 by 12 inch size was settled later through the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, and until it was, plates were sized to each state's own taste. That is why one of these will not sit in a modern frame.
Stamped, not printed
Every character here is pressed into the metal and stands proud of the surface, along with the raised rim just inside the edge. Run a hand across it and you feel the whole design. The plate was struck from flat stock in a press, then the raised faces were rolled with paint, which is why wear shows first on the tops of the characters.
Sources
Reference photograph of an issued plate. Small, at 429 by 168 pixels (Public domain). Issue period and serial format (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- 999★999
- Material
- Embossed metal
- Source license
- Public domain
- Reference
- View original