Virginia is for Lovers Plate
2014–presentVirginia · current · “Virginia is for Lovers”
The slogan is an advertising line from 1969 that the state never managed to retire, written on the plate with a red heart standing in for the V of LOVERS. It was drafted as Virginia is for lovers of history, then of mountains, then of beaches, until a copywriter cut everything after the third word. Virginia.org runs beneath it in black. The serial counts backwards through the alphabet, V toward S, so a Virginia plate can be dated by reading the letters in reverse. 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 2014 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 photograph of an issued plate (Public domain). Issue date and the serial sequence, which runs backwards through the alphabet (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- AAA-9999
- Material
- Aluminium: stamped serial on screened reflective sheeting
- Source license
- Public domain
- Reference
- View original