Is this a rare usa plate?

5 comments

1. That was the standard California plate back in the 1970’s, so presumably not all that rare given California’s population. According to this article, that was the plate from ’69-’82. https://www.lamag.com/driver/the-colorful-history-of-california-license-plates/

   As for the letters on the plate, that’s called a Vanity plate or Personalized plate where you could pick what your plate said. Fairly common, most/all states offer that. Not sure how it works in other states, but in mine (Illinois) a personalized plate was one with letters and numbers and you basically paid for the cost of issuing new plates, while vanity plates (all letters) were an additional up-charge.

2. Its just old, and not in use anymore. Could be a collectors item

3. That was the style of California plates a couple decades ago. The style is legit. It’s not all that rare (you still see them on cars occasionally). The plate is also a personalized plate, but… that plate number may have been transfered to a newer plate by the owner of the personalized plate (that is, you almost certainly could not get “79 BENZ” as your license plate).

   In terms of value, it’s worth what you can sell it for :-). Here’s a guy selling the same plate with more generic numbers for $600. https://www.californiaoldlicenseplates.com/ He may have done some additional legal work to clear the plates for use or something, and he has both front and rear plates.

   YMMV.

4. Not especially rare considering California issued these as standard in the 70s, but that one is a vanity plate in really good condition so it probably is worth something to a collector. Especially if you manage to find someone with a 79 Mercedes that they take to car shows – they’d probably give you $500-600 for it just so they could have a period correct vanity plate to wear at the shows.

   Edit: to clarify since I don’t think a lot of other countries have these, a vanity plate is when you pay extra to pick out what your license plate says. Still has to be a unique, no more than 7 characters, and can’t have any overtly vulgar language but beyond that you can get whatever you want. There’s a Honda Fit running around Maryland with plates that just say “FART”.

   Also, each state offers sort of a rotating cast of alternative designs at any given moment, usually tied to some sort of charity. Like in MD you can get a light blue one with a different design on it by paying an extra ten bucks that goes to a charity which tries to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. Some of these stick around for ages, some of them only have brief runs and then get replaced with something else. States also change their main designs all the time. Maryland has like 14 different plate styles in active common use right now for example. So if you’re going through your pile looking for rare plates look for stuff like that. Some of them might have historical interest to someone or just be extremely uncommon.

5. Love the blue and yellow ones. There’s still some around. Some vintage car owners would buy them for decorative purposes, but there’s replicas made for that purpose.