Category Archives: License Plates

There is confirmation via reader e-mail and personal observation that license plates have entered the O’s. This did not happen with the 1997 series, which skipped from N to P. It did, however, happen with the 1986 series, which began … Continue reading →

Let the record show that Iowa plates reached the end of the N’s before the end of 2023. What will the next leading letter be? That’s not necessarily an obvious answer, since the 1997 series jumped from N to P. … Continue reading →

It’s probably hard to see, but at the beginning of the year, NBC TV tweaked its classic Peacock logo. Trade publication NewscastStudio has an explanation with before-and-after GIFs. Overall, 2023 is the 70th anniversary of eight TV stations that at … Continue reading →

This post is to take stock of where we are, approximately, in the license plate cycle at the start of 2023. The late M’s were also appearing in 2003, as part of the original 1997 cycle. That took about eight … Continue reading →

In 2017, Wisconsin ran out of license plates. But instead of re-resetting its alphanumeric cycle, it moved to a seven-character AAA0000 style, and let the old plates stick around. (See this Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story.) Although the base design goes back … Continue reading →

This combination is easy to illustrate! May 9, 2007: A panel at Itasca State Park, headwaters of the Mississippi River, is about the Jefferson Highway. February 8, 2012: The Civil War in Missouri, as seen at Battle of Lexington State … Continue reading →

“Fiat Lux” — “Let there be light,” the motto of the University of California system “Fiat Slug” — “Let there be slug,” the non-motto of the University of California-Santa Cruz, home of the squishiest mascot in college sports. No focus … Continue reading →

Usually, when the Iowa Automobile Dealers Association has been involved in lobbying the Legislature recently, it’s about getting rid of front license plates. See this Radio Iowa story from last year. But this time, the group is out to eliminate … Continue reading →

I haven’t acknowledged Iowa’s 2012 license plate series going into the L’s and we’re already getting close to halfway through. It took the 1997 series until somewhere in late 2002 to get here — six years, vs. nine years this … Continue reading →