I'll Trade You My "Jumpy" "Mickey Mouse" For Your "Navel"-Less 1910 Michigan

Everyone knows cars are collectible. In fact, they are second to none, despite our love of all things you can categorize, number and store...baseball cards, barbie dolls, comic books...lingerie. I even had a really sweet signed 1968 Topps Don Wert card (not that it was THAT difficult). But who knew that license plates could be springing up a collectible industry all its own?

Not only does it exist, but the license plate collectible industry has spawned its own glossary, with terms like:

· jumpy — Referring to an error plate where one or more of the numbers in the plate are misaligned.

· navel / dimple — The slightly debossed rectangular area on a license plate, designated for affixing a date or month sticker.

· "Mickey Mouse" / booster — A non-official license plate, usually a front plate, issued for advertising purposes.

In addition to the very robust glossary, the collector site pl8s.com also has a killer list of pictures of plates from all over the world. I'm kinda thinking that they are becoming the Beckett of the plate collecting industry.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that there are a number of regional plate-collecting organizations, the largest of course is the Michigan License Plate Collectors Association. But hold on. It looks like Michigan wasn't the first local government to issue license plates. They were the second, issuing their inaugural plate in 1910. The first? France in 1905.

Damn those frogs. Ooh...do you need to get a license plate on a trojan rabbit?

FIVE THINGS: About license plates [Freep]

Related:
Massachusetts Lawmakers Want to Simplify Plates, Add Symbols [internal]