Thanks guys! I've been collecting for about four or five years now. My Grandpa had some plates that he gave me and that's how I started. Actually, I've found most of mine at antique shops, swap meets, and people that give them to me. I'm getting to the point now where I have more plates than I know what to do with, kind of like Keane mentioned, but I enjoy collecting them.

 

Very cool collection. Thanks for sharing. I like the key tags, i never seen them before. I think my favorite MI plate is the 76 bicentennial plate. I have a set of 1964 plates that were covering a hole in the garage wall so I took them off and hung them up.

Also on a side note my father in law has the original 1971 plates on his cutlass. Basically he paid for the historic vehicle plate and then took the classic plates he used in to the secretary of state so they could get a picture of them on file.

 

Thanks Lou. I've got about 8 of the Michigan Bicentennial plate; Michigan's first plate to utilize a graphic. The VYK shown is in excellent condition and my best condition MI Bicentennial plate. They have that reflective white paint for the lettering (which usually gets nasty and filled with dirt). The state allows you to use the older plates on historic vehicles as long as you show the plate and they will/can register the number.

 

that's an awsome collection man! i've always thought the michigan bicentennial places were really cool.

i've got a few old NJ plates my aunt gave me YEARS ago, after i found them in her garage, the dates go from the early 40's up to about 1960.

 

cool collection

 

Thats awesome! My mechanic does the same thing his shop walls are lined with them.

 

Thanks guys! I'm not really sure what to do with half of my collection right now. I have my favorites on display and the others are in a box (mostly multiples of the more recent plates). I figure one day I'll hang them in my garage or something. We'll see. I plan on continuing collecting them for a while. It's just fun to acquire new plates and the history that goes along with them.

The guy at the swap meet this past weekend had basically every year Michigan plate. He restores plates and most of his earlier plates were ones he had restored. However, the earliest porcelain plates he had were in original condition. He had one 1910 Michigan porcelain plate available, the first year Michigan issued a statewide plate. He was selling it for $300.

I'm going up North this weekend. We have a pretty good size antique shop up there so I want to stop in again and see what they have in terms of plates. I'll update if I come across anything good. I always go through these huge, basically antique "warehouses" on a mission ONLY for license plates.

 

Went up to the lake for the holiday weekend and came back with a few additions to my collection. I ended up getting eight Michigan plates (all Wayne County issued plates) and one metal tab; two matching pair of 1969 plates, one pair of sequential 1967 plates, two trailer plates, and one mint condition 1961 metal tab. The plates cost me $5 each and the tab $12. The two pairs of 69 plates and the one pair of 67 plates are easily worth three to four times what I paid. This ups the number of plates in my collection to 123.

 

Nice I had a few cars with the red and white ones...

 

Matt did you ever see the episode of American Pickers that they find the leather olds Plate. Its pretty cool they take it to the RE Olds museum. In it it shows a big collection of plates at the museum. Check it out if you havent already or you could just go to the museum in Lansing.