Paging Mr. Art Anderson to the white "Info Please Phone"

[Danno]

Hey, Art!

Greetings my friend. Hope you're well.

I have a question you can help me with, I'm sure.

I'm trying to replicate a 1953 Indiana license plate ... St. Joseph County if it makes a difference.

I've found a pic of a 1950 IN plate and pix of what appear to be smaller 'rockers' for 1953 that would bolt to a full-size license plate to show the later year ... I know some states did that to save costs and metal. Would that be accurate for Indiana in '53?

Any wisdom you - or any other IN denizens - can offer will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[Foxer]

some 53 plates on this page.... Indiana plates

scroll down to Indiana on left column and then 1950's Complete ... has a blowup image of the year strip even!

kind of interesting. Never saw this done before.

Edited October 17, 2009 by Foxer

[Art Anderson]

Hey, Art!

Greetings my friend. Hope you're well.

I have a question you can help me with, I'm sure.

I'm trying to replicate a 1953 Indiana license plate ... St. Joseph County if it makes a difference.

I've found a pic of a 1950 IN plate and pix of what appear to be smaller 'rockers' for 1953 that would bolt to a full-size license plate to show the later year ... I know some states did that to save costs and metal. Would that be accurate for Indiana in '53?

Any wisdom you - or any other IN denizens - can offer will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

In the 50's, through 1961, Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles used a letters-numbers system. Two letters at the beginning (left side) denoted the county (many counties had multiple pairs of letters based on the number of registrations expected, with the numerals ranging from 1 to 9999. For example, Tippecanoe County (where I live) used the prefix letters MM, MN, MQ and MP, MM plates being Fairfield Twp, which encompasses the City of Lafayette, and in 1953, MN was used for West Lafayette/Wabash Twp and all the rest of the rural townships. By the end of the 50's, our local car population had grown to the extent that MP was added, MQ came along, I believe, in 1960, MP being Lafayette, MQ assigned to wherever in the county.

St Joseph County would be very similar, but I don't know the letter prefixes, can't find any list online at the moment, but I do know that such a list does exist, so possibly a query on one of the many antique car message boards might turn up something (I am thinking of Antique Automobile Club of America -- AACA -- here. A Google search should turn up their message boards).

In 1951, due to the crisis-like rearming of US Armed Forces in the face of the Korean Conflict and the Cold War, steel and other metals were limited as to what private industries and the various states could use, so Indiana adopted a strip tag to be secured under the license plate mounting bolts on both front and rear of the car (back then, Indiana's motor vehicle code required both front and rear plates) over the "year" of the plate, be that "year" designation at the top or at the bottom of the plate. These happened for 1951, 1953, and 1955, as the plates being steel, they were very prone to rusting.

For finding a St Joseph County-issued license plate from the 50's, to get a correct letter prefix, do some searching for Studebakers, lots of those restorers like an Indiana plate from the year of their car, on the front, or in states which require two plates, often they will put on Indiana plates when showing their cars. Also don't forget magazines, such as Collectible Automobile and Special Interest Autos/Hemmings Classic Cars mags. Every once in a while, a car shows up there in good quality photo's showing clearly the license plate of the year of mfr.

As a little aside here: From the beginnings of automobile registration in Indiana, through the late 1970's, License Branches were a political plum, management of them determined by the then current governor. So, in effect, license branches operated as private businesses, almost always the chairman of the county Democratic or Republican Committee becoming the manager, dependent of course, on the political persuasion of the Governor. This lead to the lowest numbers being reserved for the top echelon of party faithful, #1 almost always going to the Chairman, and often all the way to #100. In addtion, one could, for an extra fee, reserve a specific number. Our next door neighbor always got a license number matching his street address (Mr Carr lived at 345 South Chauncey, so his license plate number was always MN 345, beginning in 1962 until he died in 1973, 79D345). With this in mind, you might want to consider making up a 4-digit number at random.

Art

[Danno]

Thank you very much, Mike and Art. Very helpful.

I'll show you the finished project you've contributed to!

Best!