My Minnesota license plate was somewhat grubby, but its clean now in prep for a hopefully soon completion.
I do have two questions about these 1912, 1913, 1914 marked plates.
The background color looks a lot like the stewart speedometer faceplate color, would that be right ??
and lastly, these plates were made in batches every three years or the car registration was paid for three years ???
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
David.
David:
My dad is a collector of early Minnesota license plates.
If you give me the full number of the plate or post a picture of the entire plate, I can tell you who it was registered to and the automobile.
There were two different types of 1912-13-14 plates. One style is polished aluminum with black painted digits. The other is a steel plate with a silver painted background and black painted digits. With age, sometimes the silver paint gets a golden or brownish tinge.
If a magnet sticks to your plate, then it is steel. If it does not, it is aluminum and someone painted the background with aluminum paint. If it is aluminum, you can strip the aluminum paint and polish the plate with Simichrome and steel wool.
Tomorrow when I have time, I'll take some photos of plates and show you what they look like when cleaned up.
Depending on when the plate was issued, the owner paid for three, two or one year. For example, if the car was registered in 1912, the owner paid for three years. If the car was registered in 1913, the owner paid for two years.
Minnesota had three year plates for 1912-14, 1915-17 and 1918-20.
G'day Erik,
tried the magnet, yep, its a soft rather flexible steel, with a light greeny tint to a silver.
MINN 35317 12,13,14.
the back appears to be a hand painted silver paint, still quite shinny after a scrub with a green scourer.
I an interested to know if this is indeed a T plate or not, either way would be ok.
Cheers David.
David:
According to the public directory, Minnesota 1912-13-14 plate 35317 was issued in 1913 to H.B. Chisby of Montevideo for a Ford. There actually would have been a pair of plates issued. Most likely, it was a Model T. However, the only way to determine what year and model Ford (T or pre-T such as N, R, or S) would be to look up the registration in the original hand posted ledger at the Minnesota Historical Society.
I gave you some misinformation in my original post. There were two different types of plates, aluminum and steel. However, the steel plate was not painted. It was actually tin plated. (I always thought they were painted but my dad straightened me out).
Here are some photos for your enjoyment:
Steel plate, tin plated
Aluminum with original painted numbers
Aluminum plate with original painted numbers
Aluminum plate with original painted numbers
Repainted/restored plate - this is the actual #1 plate for 1918-19-20
Original paint
My father researching one of the hand posted ledgers of license plate registrations at the Minnesota Historical Society
You gotta love history and those who maintain it. It's neat that you could zero in on that for David.
Great pics, Erik.
wow how good are you, approach one hundred years and you come up with a name, thats fantasic.
Thank you very very much.
Itried this with the Kansas plate that my 13 runabout came with and all l could do is go back 2 or 3 owners???
THANK YOU Erik and ERIKS DAD.
From the photo of the first plate ( 60390 ) that sliver as mine looks to be a little goldish in the silver, is that the color or has flash piced upo something the eye does not see well ???
cheers again David .