Plate of the week: unusual 1952 CTR sample

This unusual 1952 Commercial Truck sample plate was offered briefly on eBay yesterday (from seller tigerprawn78 ... but then it mysteriously vanished.



Most of these samples have a different color scheme:


Never seen one like it before!

Alaska Veteran Cemetary bill goes into law

Senate Bill 45 has been signed by Governor Palin, and goes into effect 8/23/09.

An Act relating to state employment preferences for veterans, former prisoners of war, and members of the Alaska National Guard; authorizing the Department of Military and Veterans' Affairs to establish and maintain Alaska veterans' cemeteries; establishing the Alaska veterans' cemetery fund in the general fund; and authorizing the legislature to appropriate income from fees collected for commemorative veterans' plates to the Alaska veterans' cemetery fund.

No word yet on what the license plates will be like, but they'll certainly be for a good cause.

Kotzebue to require current tags

The few cars in Kotzebue have been rolling with whatever plates they happened to have on - but that's changing now.

(via the Anchorage Daily News

WAR: Wayne Anthony Ross' interesting license plates

photo from the now-defunct and much-missed Insurgent49

On March 26th, 2009, Governor Sarah Palin appointed Wayne Anthony Ross to be the Attorney General for Alaska. The print version and the original version of the ADN article yesterday refers to Ross' personalized license plate:

Wayne Anthony Ross, a gun rights advocate who blazes around town in a red Hummer with the personalized tag WAR, will step into the position vacated last month by Talis Colberg.

The clever initials-as-actual-word usage is clever and eye-catching - especially on a Hummer.

But for license plate geeks, what's interesting here is that this plate has gone through a number of incarnations. Ross has had the same plate for so long (apparently, for at least 35 years) that he has a number of bases to choose from - and he does. In the photo above, he's running a 1974 vanity:



A year later, I just happened to run across Ross' vehicle at random, and in the intervening time, he had put on his 1976 plate (the red-on-white clearly identifies is as the 'standing bear' vintage, sans bear):



Most folks would never notice - but the plate people appreciate seeing a little bit of history on the road!

Alaskan Veterans cemetary approved by State Senate

Commemorative veterans' license plates will be part of the funding of an Alaskan Veterans Cemetary. The State House and State Senate are working on similar bills - more details to follow.

Via the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Alaska HB116 - Iditarod Registration Plates

The Alaska bill to create Iditarod finisher license plates is back up for consideration as HB116.


AS 28.10.181 is amended by adding a new subsection to read:

(y) Special request Iditarod race finisher plates. Upon application by the owner of a motor vehicle, the department may design and issue Iditarod race finisher registration plates to a person who has finished the Iditarod race. The owner shall supply written proof, verified by the Iditarod Trail Committee, that the owner has successfully finished the race. The department may disapprove the issuance of registration plates under this subsection when the requested plates are a duplication of an existing registration.


Here is a very early prototype:



... and here is a revised prototype (probably to improve legibility of the number):



The artwork may end up being different from the prototypes. This will be determined later in the approval process.

The dog in this prototype is Fred Agree's dog, Blackie.

If you could put any artwork or theme you wanted on you license plates, what would it be?