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My new black license plates

FOR LICENSE PLATES????? You guys are nuts.
I bought a set of black and yellow plates for my '69 vert about 20 years ago for $100 at Hot August Nights swap meet in Reno. Looks like they were a good investment.;) BTW, I recently ordered a set of black and yellow vanity plates for my '95 Bronco and didn't notice that CA is now charging something like $60 a year for those. Goniff bastages. I have to agree though that it won't be long until the crazies that run this place eliminate the internal combustion engine. The didn't ban guns, but they made ammo much harder to buy. Through taxation and regulation they will make gasoline more and more costly. Same approach. You can have a gasoline powered car but you can't afford the gas for it. Got a survey yesterday paid for by my local city government basically begging for more property taxes to fund basic services like landscaping public property. I pointed out that the other possible answer to their "dilemma" would be to learn how to budget. They want to circumvent our property tax limitations passed in 1978.
 
The ironic thing is that behavior modification, as a way to manipulate human behavior, is so ingrained into modern life that no one seems to flinch when significant tax credits and car pool lane stickers are used as the "carrot" to incentivize the purchase of high priced hybrids and plug in electrics. Here in Silicon Valley there are so many Teslas running around (tax credits of $7500 each) that at some point the loss of tax revenue will lead the "chosen ones" to advocate for another increase in gas taxes to pay for road maintenance that the last gas tax hike was supposed to cover. Just sayin, Ken may be right............
 
I ordered a set of reproduction black license plates from a German vendor on eBay for my '67. I decided to pull the trigger and see how they match up to the originals. These plates are soooooo close to the originals as to be essentially indistinguishable. They're the same gauge of steel as the originals. There are a few "tells" if you compare side by side--the distance between the U and X, for example, is slightly different. The finish is glossier than original so they wouldn't pass for original unrestored, but the colors are spot-on. The dimensions, the weight, even the 63 in the corner are spot-on. The seller even gave the option of 63 with or without the apostrophe--they were originally made both ways. These are a vast improvement over the plastic coated aluminum repros I bought several years ago. Bottom line--NO ONE will be able to tell these are reproduction plates. Even me.
View attachment 32185
Frank, which one is the original CA plate and which is the German repop? Is it just the lighting or is the plate on the right devoid of the stamped in border and recesses for the tags? Does anyone in the U.S. re-condition CA black and yellows?
 
Frank, which one is the original CA plate and which is the German repop? Is it just the lighting or is the plate on the right devoid of the stamped in border and recesses for the tags? Does anyone in the U.S. re-condition CA black and yellows?
They're both reproductions. The lighting makes them look different. As far as restoration, www.finishyourplates.com is one that looks pretty good. I haven't personally seen any of his plates but the pictures look good. The price for restoration is not much less than the repros and I wanted to keep my originals unrestored.
 
Well I ordered another set of black plates from this Gregor in Germany and they arrived today.
They are spot on. Not even the rectangular edging if the number dies. And I also got month and year stickers too.

So now I have my Christmas present.
 
I'm probably getting into deep bandini here with state regulations, but I gather from this discussion that the state frowns on restoration of real California plates? The ones on my '69 (particularly the front one) are starting to look a little worn after all these years. If I had them repainted would that be illegal?
 
I'm probably getting into deep bandini here with state regulations, but I gather from this discussion that the state frowns on restoration of real California plates? The ones on my '69 (particularly the front one) are starting to look a little worn after all these years. If I had them repainted would that be illegal?
The DMV has no problem with restored plates. They even revised their YOM form a few years back to make it clear that restoration is acceptable as long as they're not altered from the original configuration:
 
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