This license plate has been on display in my different living spaces (my rooms at home and now my dorm) since around 2004. As I’m typing this, I realize how long that actually is. What use did a license plate bring, whether it be aesthetically or functionally, to a 6/7 year old?
This is a 1986 design of a New York license plate, which was retired in the year 2000. Its a rectangular metal sheet with New York painted in blue on the top and a picture in red of the statue of liberty underneath. Punched into the metal is a combination of letters and numbers which is painted over in blue. The background is white with red stripes on the top and bottom. It’s obviously been used, which is displayed by it’s cracked paint and bent state.
This license plate was either from a car of my parents, that was given to my brother or directly from my brothers car in high school. For clarification, my brother is in his 30’s so he was in high school in the late 90’s early 2000’s. Regardless, I would consider it’s original ownership to be that of my brother.
Technically, you could say it’s original ownership was the United States Government, since all license plates must be issued by the DMV; a United States agency. Yet, I don’t consider that ownership in my mind. To me, it was just created and distributed by them. Also, apparently the creation of license plates is done by prisoners, but I don’t know the validity of that.
The function of this object is obvious to anyone living in the modern day world; to identify a car for purposes of registration and other bureaucratic things. It’s a car version of a social security number. The numbers itself have helped immensely with crime in recent years with the advancement of technology; if one gets their car stolen they can try and track it with security cameras and identify the car with this number. In a more personal and simple sense, this plate allowed my brother to drive his car legally.
When it came time for this plate to retire, my brother put it on display in his room.It’s functionally was completely removed; the plate was now just a symbol or a nice display on a wall, like some sort of trophy. A couple years later, come 2004, my brother now went to military school and my parents were separated. I was sharing a room with my sister previously, but with my brother away, I was given his room. All his stuff was half packed into boxes or gone, but the plate still sat, pinned to the wall. I don’t know why I loved it so much; I always thought it was just “cool”. When we moved into our current house, I brought it with me and pinned it to the wall also.
Over this winter break, my brother noticed it in my room and he asked me how I got it. At this point, over 10 years later I almost forgot about it. He told me you could use old plates if it was the same year as the car was made, and he had been looking for it cause he bought an older car and wanted to use them. I told him how I took them with me when we moved and had it ever since. He let me keep it and told me it wasn’t a big deal but I just found it interesting how he remembered after all these years that he had kept this simple old license plate. I brought it back with me to my dorm after and I still can’t really figure out what I like so much about it. In a way, it’s a stolen nostalgia; remembering the past that was never truly mine.
The Materials of History, Thought, and Art 
I can totally relate to your post. My mom has always had the same license plate on her car and I can’t imagine life without that plate. License plates are all virtually the same thing that are always manufactured in the same way (by prisoners?) yet they are all totally unique. They identify not only cars but the person who owns that car; it becomes almost like a second identity. It makes total sense to me that you feel such an attachment to this license plate because it is both a part of your brother’s history as well as your own. There is no other license plate out there exactly like that one. I would say its function has changed from a label, to your brother’s memento of his past, to now your own completely unique memento of your history.
When I was younger, my brother and I used to keep track of all the state license plates we saw on the street (we never saw one from Alaska, but we did see one from Hawaii, somehow!), but I don’t remember seeing a New York license plate that looked like this, so I completely believe you that it was from 1986 and retired in 2000. I always like looking at older signage, forms of identification, and things like that because I love looking at the designs that came before the ones I’m familiar with. I like seeing the progression of the design over time. There’s definitely something about this plate’s aesthetic that makes it retro, at least in my eyes, especially compared to its successor (now retired itself), which I remember was much more complex. I can understand your affinity for it, and why you chose to keep it and display it on your wall. It’s a relic now—a true piece of history!
I really enjoyed reading your post for this week. I’ve always thought license plates were cool, both functionally and decoratively. There’s also quite an artistic element to license plates, which a lot of people don’t really know about. The design and color scheme of license plates from different states is very meticulously thought out. People in charge of designing the plates are responsible for encapsulating their state on just a small sheet of metal. For that reason, I’ve always loved seeing license plates from other states around because of their depictions, some with idyllic mountain scenes, and others adorned with slogans. I’ve actually never seen a NY State license plate like the one in this post, so that was also very cool to see how it has changed over time in our own state. Overall very interesting post!