The Last Statehood Plate

This plate (FUW 999) is the very last of Alaska's 50th Anniversary of Statehood license plates.


I'll be running with this plate until a new style becomes available (or until I break down and get another vanity style!)

The word from the DMV is that they'll be skipping the rest of the F series entirely, and going back to the fully-embossed blue-on-gold plates starting with GAA.

Plate of the Week: Alaskan Iditarod Finisher Plates

This will be a tough one to get for sure.



Full details on The Alaska DMV Iditarod Finisher plate page. Also covered by The Juneau Empire article about Alaskan Iditarod Finisher plates.

Some prototypes that included the Iditarod crest (which didn't make it to the final design) have also been floating around:



Trivia item: That's Alaska collector Fred Agree's dog, Blackie.

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!

Video of Alaskan Plates

This honestly never occurred to me.

Metacafe user Steveg7esd has posted a video of some Alaskan vanity plates.



The soundtrack is especially entertaining.

This takes our illnesshobby to a whole new level!

Earl's Plates

As you may have read earlier, the 2008 Alaska license plate meet is in honor of Earl Jenson.

If you have more than a few Alaskas, chances are that you have at least one or two plates that look like this:


Like some other collectors with a long view of plate collecting, Earl wrote his ALPCA member number (#355) on the backs of his plates with a Sharpie. It's a fascinating little calling card. I knew that I had a couple of Earl's plates, but I had no idea that I had eight until I sifted through my boxes this evening.

Even if you can't come to the meet this year, take a moment to flip through your Alaskas, and if you find some of Earl's plates, take a quick picture of yourself holding them up, and send them to me so that we can display them at the meet.

Some fun plate photos from Ms. VILDA

The Alaska Digital Archives (known to her friends as 'VILDA'), is a collaborative effort among libraries and museums in Alaska. There are many interesting historical photographs, including some Alaskan license plate photos, including this terrific shot of Governor Egan receiving his #1 Alaska plate in 1960:


There's also a shot of Egan's son attaching a #1 Alaska license plate to his motorcycle. Searching for 'car' or 'truck' also yields some interesting results, but I'll leave those as an optional exercise.

Source: VILDA.

Alaskan license plate photo pool on Flickr

There is a Flickr photo pool of Alaskan license plates. They're almost all vanities, and fun to sift through.

(Flickr is a popular photo publishing site, with good free features and some nice premium perks for folks who want a little extra).