Auto World 1961 License Plates

[afx]

I've had these in my collection a long time - and no I did not by them new.  I'm old but not quite that old.  Thought I would share a photo of them with you.  Pretty darn cool I think.

 

Edited February 1, 2017 by afx

[Chuck Most]

I have this same sheet somewhere- a coupe were missing when I got it with a box of decals and spare parts years ago, but I'm amazed that after 55 years the adhesive is still sort-of hanging on. 

[Misha]

Great to see that again! I'm an old fart and recall how thrilling it was to get the customs card in the mail informing me that an Auto World package was waiting for me to pick up. Perusing the annual catalog was a thrill as much of the items were unavailabel in Canada inspite of having three great hobby shops in town. The sheet of plates was a good example. Somewhere I'm sure I still have one...

Thanks for the memory! 

Cheers Misha

Edited February 1, 2017 by Misha
spelling

[StevenGuthmiller]

That is cool!

I never knew that they did detail bits like this back in those days.

I did find it kind of funny that they chose a '59 Pontiac for the art work on their '61 license plate packaging.

 

Steve

[tim boyd]

I still have my two sheets (though they are starting to get pretty picked over).....cool stuff....thanks for sharing for those of us that remember (and those that are seeing them for the first time...)   TIM 

[afx]

Yea I loved the catalog!  Growing up in rural PA there were no hobby shops.  I would go through every page of the catalog over and over marking the kits or slot cars I wanted.  After I saved up enough lawn mowing money I would send off an order and count the days until it would arrive.

[CometMan]

Those are really cool! I also didn't know that any sort of detailing pieces were offered back then other than the custom parts in kits.

[Daddyfink]

I actually have two of those plate sheets. Got them by accident in a box of junk parts. Dug everything out and they where at the bottom of the box! Some fell off, but you can make a complete sheet from the two! 

[unclescott58]

I've got at least one complete, mint, set of these plates still. I may have two? The one I know I have for sure is kept inside my copy of my 1971 Auto World catalog. I gave another mint set to a guy about 15 years ago who wanted to make a decal set of them. With the promise I would get at least one set of decals in exchange. Never saw the decals. And have not seen the guy who said he was going to do them in years.

One can still find these Auto World license plates showing up on eBay from time to time. Because Auto World printed a ton of these back in the day, they are not really all that hard to find. And can be picked up at fairly reasonable prices.

Scott

 

[unclescott58]

A quick follow up. There is a guy on eBay with a buy it now, right now, advertising complete sets for $4.00, plus $1.00 shipping. There is another one asking $24.99, plus $4.99 shipping for the exact same thing. Then there is another with an incomplete set going for $3.00, plus $2.67 shipping. It sounds like the guy selling them for $4.00 a set, has a few sets available. And his shipping drops to $0.25 for each additional set you buy after you first one. I ordered another set at that price.

Scott

 

Edited February 1, 2017 by unclescott58

[keyser]

At this point, a good scan and touchups of inevitable yellowing would be awesome start. 

Good P-shop work could flip colors and years, print sheet on clear adhesive backed mylar, and boom. Never understood why this hasn't happened, but OK. 

[CometMan]

At this point, a good scan and touchups of inevitable yellowing would be awesome start. 

Good P-shop work could flip colors and years, print sheet on clear adhesive backed mylar, and boom. Never understood why this hasn't happened, but OK. 

It's easy enough to find pictures of pretty much any license plate ever issued through the ALPCA that you can save in a file, then print them onto decal paper with a decal making program (that are pretty cheap). These are just a really cool collectible/conversation piece.

[StevenGuthmiller]

I buy all of my plates on ebay from "bestmodelcarparts".

He offers all kinds of sets from many different states & different years.

Each sheet contains 5 sets of plates from a particular state from 5 consecutive years.

really nice quality stuff for $2.49 per sheet.

 

Steve

 

[unclescott58]

I buy all of my plates on ebay from "bestmodelcarparts".

He offers all kinds of sets from many different states & different years.

Each sheet contains 5 sets of plates from a particular state from 5 consecutive years.

really nice quality stuff for $2.49 per sheet.

 

Steve

 

I purchased several from this vendor too. His stuff is great. 

Scott

 

[Foxer]

I've had these in my collection a long time - and no I did not by them new.  I'm old but not quite that old.  Thought I would share a photo of them with you.  Pretty darn cool I think.

 

 

Are these Peel and Stick? 

Looks like there were some one plate states back then, and us Detail Fanatics that "did it right" back then too! 

[afx]

 

 

Are these Peel and Stick? 

Looks like there were some one plate states back then, and us Detail Fanatics that "did it right" back then too! 

Yep peel & stick.  The adhesive now though is pretty dried out.

[Sixties Sam]

I had a set of those from circa 1962. I think they were freebies from AW when I bought some other stuff from them. A few are still on some of my old models from those times! They must have used good glue on them!

Sam

[High octane]

Although I do not have any of those Auto World License Plates now, I do remember them well as I too had them back-in-the-day.

[Mark72JPS]

I still have two or three sheets. i think I got them from Auto World some time in the mid seventies. I know I didn't get them new as I was born in December 1961.

[Mark]

They'd give you a set (or a choice of a couple of other items) when you had to reorder something that was out of stock (which was pretty much every time you placed an order).  A couple of the early catalogs had a set folded in half and inserted between the pages.  Those sets were printed on slick paper without any adhesive.

[ChrisBcritter]

Got the remains of a couple sheets somewhere; one was cut a little wrong so some had to be stitched together. Don't know about the rest, but the Illinois plate is the wrong color/style for 1961 - they used a '60 plate and changed the year. "Land of Lincoln" should be on the bottom (as it was an odd-numbered year) and the plate should be red with white characters.

[Tom Geiger]

Here's one of the AutoWorld plates on an old build of mine. I bought two mint sheets back in the late 1980s at a show. I kept one and used some plates from the other.   This was before it was easy to print plates off the Internet!

Edited February 2, 2017 by Tom Geiger

[robertw]

I remember them and yes I did buy them new. I wish I still had what was left of the sheet but they are long gone as are the models that I put them on.

[PeeBee]

Yep, still have the sheet I bought from AutoWorld in 1967.  Egad, that was 50 years ago!

PB.

[MrObsessive]

JC, I have a set of those '61 plates, and mine looks exactly like yours! I think the last time I used them was on this '55 T-Bird I built back in 1999-2000, and then again on my '59 Chevy last year and yes, they needed "help" staying on the plate! I think I've had mine since the early '80's and heaven knows how long they were around before that.

And yes, those plates are as old as I am!

Bestmodelcarparts does make some nice decals----I've gotten dash gauges from him and they really dress up those dashboards.