Texas 2007 Base Plate
2007–2009Texas · base · “The Lone Star State”
The only turn of the shuttle series you can pick out across a car park, and the last embossed standard plate Texas issued: everything after it is printed flat. Three things move at once. The stars over the orbiter grow markedly larger, which the state tied to the seven astronauts lost aboard Columbia over Texas in 2003. The orbiter itself gains the national flag along its fuselage. And the silhouette dividing the serial stops being plain red and becomes the Texas flag, star and stripes and all. The serial returns to three letters leading three digits. Wikipedia calls this a simplified design, which reads as the graphic being dropped; the photograph shows the opposite. The plate shown is a reconstruction carrying an invented serial, so no real registration is depicted.
One plate, several years
This design served from 2007 to 2009 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.
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 2008 plate (CC BY-SA 4.0, AllenLow). Issue period and serial format (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- AAA-999
- Material
- Embossed aluminium with reflective sheeting
- Source license
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Reference
- View original