Friday, August 1, 2008

License Plates (Theme Day Picture)

BANDUNG LICENSE PLATES

My first participation in the Theme Day, and my 50th post!

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Pictured above are license plates displayed on a street side fence by a street side plate maker.

And here are some interesting tids and bits about license plates:
  • Lincense plates have been in existence for as long as automobiles. The first appeared during the transition from horse-drawn carts to automobiles, between 1890 - 1910.
  • The first country to introduce a national license plate was the Netherlands in 1898. The first licenses consisted only of numbers.
  • In the United States, license plates were not originally issued by the goverment. Individual owners of motor vehicles had to make their own. Masschusetts and West Viriginia were the first states to issue license plates in 1903. New York State required motor vehicles to have license plates in 1901, but did not issue them. Individual motor vehicle owners had to make them themselves.
  • License plates have not always been made of metal. At one time they were made of porcelain baked onto iron, plain ceramic, carton, plastic, copper, and even pressed soybeans!
  • License plates are collectible objects and there are groups and organizations dedicated to this.

Indonesian License Plates consist of a combination of alphabets and numbers. The initial letter(s) indicate the region in which the vehicle is registered, the numbers are the unique identification number the vehicle, and the letters at the end are the serial code or district identification. Indonesian license plates are basically categorized into the following:

  • Commercial vehicles: a yellow background and black numbering.
  • Private vehicles: a black background with white letters.
  • Government vehicles: red with white fonts.
  • Dealer plates: white with red letters.
  • Military plates for Army, Navy, Air Force, and also the Police.
  • Diplomatic corps: white plates and black numbering with "CD" prefix.

15 comments:

USelaine said...

When I was born nearly 50 years ago, auto plates in California were white letters and numbers on black, like this. Then it went to yellow on black, and now, yellow on blue. I wonder why they changed.

Virginia said...

Well I learned a lot about your license plates and mine.
Cool shot. Congrats on your anniversary!

Unknown said...

What are the colors for the military and police?

Very interesting little piece of history, wow you did your homework. By some chance do you collect license plates?

M. CHRISTOPHE said...

Interesting post very well documented. Nice illustration of this theme day.

~tanty~ said...

Hehe quite creative. Oh, congrats for your 50th post today :)

Anonymous said...

kalau di sini dengan bayar sekitar 15 euro an bisa kasih inisial nama dan tanggal lahir, atau tgl nikah, atau tanggal2 istimewa lainnya di plat mobilnya

MJ said...

Interesting intepretation of the theme.

For our country, some can go through great length, spending money to get a particular number plate which they feel brings them luck i.e 888, 8888, 168, 777 or just having the same numbers for their different cars.

Joy said...

I like this photo. It's got very good composition.

Have a fab weekend! Happy theme day.

joy
Norwich Daily Photo

Jilly said...

Congrats on your 50 days. Nice choice today. And great information!

MumbaiiteAnu said...

Very interesting choice for the theme day.
Nice photos and great info.
Happy Theme Day!

Z said...

I don't know how many other countries have them, but in the US, the 'vanity' plates always amused me. For a fee, one can choose what they want their plate to say. Of course, at least one person on the web is bound to have a site listing some of the ones spotted by contributers (remove the pagebreak after the .edu):
http://www-chaos.umd.edu/
misc/plates.html

Swiss plates are really boring. The canton that issued the plate is listed, and then the number.

Janet Kincaid said...

Congratulations on your first theme day post! This is a great picture and very informative.

Here's to many more theme days and lots of fun photographing your part of the world.

Happy Theme Day!

Janet

Jane Hards Photography said...

Congratulations On the first 50. I have enjoyed this them day better than last month. Interesting to see how wnad why an everyday object can be so different around the world.

Rambling Woods said...

Back before car DVD players, my sister and I used to play a game counting license plates. I bet no kid would do that anymore. Interesting info on the history Eki!

luna said...

I was going to mention the vanity plates in the U.S. but someone beat me to the punch.

Countries in the EU now have standard license plates.

Sometimes, I get to see an old license plate from Switzerland, France.

But these old plates are just about passe.

Also, congratulations on the 50th post.