Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: personalized license plates

This is topic personalized license plates in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Kara J. McVay (Member # 1285) on 02-12-2003, 09:22 PM:

Just wondering how many of you have personalized plates?
Mine: MOVIEZ

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-12-2003, 09:35 PM:

YYZ-2112

It's very subtle.

[Big Grin]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-12-2003, 10:02 PM:

Once I was thinking of having a personalized license plate on my car. That thought was dashed very quickly when I found out Washington State charges an arm and a leg for them. [thumbsdown]

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 02-12-2003, 10:28 PM:

Mine was AL BNDY during high school [Smile]

I've been meaning to get it back to that, but I never get a chance to do that.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 02-12-2003, 10:32 PM:

My special plates reads " C S A " for my three initials. [Smile]

I am not sure the exact amount the state of Hawaii charges for personalized plates but I think I pay about $25.00 in addition to my registration fee every year.

-Claude

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 02-12-2003, 10:43 PM:

Mine is: N2 35MM

>>> Phil

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-12-2003, 10:58 PM:

Mine:

FLM-TCH

J/K

Posted by Ray Brown (Member # 1449) on 02-12-2003, 10:59 PM:

quote:
Once I was thinking of having a personalized license plate on my car. That thought was dashed very quickly when I found out Washington State charges an arm and a leg for them.

I just check the state DOL site and this is what the fees are:
The initial plate fee for a passenger vehicle is $44.50. The initial plate fee for motorcycles, trailers and campers is $44.00. Once a personalized plate is issued, a $30 renewal fee will be charged in addition to all other licensing fees each time you renew your vehicle. These fees are in addition to all other titling and renewal fees that are due in the normal course of titling and licensing a vehicle.

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 02-12-2003, 11:15 PM:

The one on the SUV is "Filmnut" and the one on the truck is "IC STRS"

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-12-2003, 11:24 PM:

Ray, now you know why I didn't. [Smile]

Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 02-13-2003, 01:03 AM:

Interesting factoid:
Maine has the highest number of 'vanity plates' per capita out of all the states in the US.
And apparently, Maine is the state where it is least expensive to have a personalized license plate.

Even so, I don't have a personalized plate. The assistant manager of my theater's plates have 'BADGRRL', one of my coworkers has 'EXTOL' on his plates, and my mom has 'SEHRGUT' on her '76 Beetle. [thumbsup]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-13-2003, 01:22 AM:

Here is my license plate:

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 02-13-2003, 03:15 AM:

None now, but I did have two personalized Nevada plates:
Civil Air Patrol 0018, and my old ham call sign N7FJF.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 02-13-2003, 04:06 AM:

Between 1989-1991 I had the following WA plates on my car:

After moving back to California in 1991, I got another plate (no pic) Z NON ('Xenon' was already taken)...

-Aaron

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-13-2003, 04:06 AM:

Bobby-

I failed to notice that plate when you were in town. Is that new? Or did you use another vehicle?

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 02-13-2003, 10:18 AM:

quote:
YYZ-2112

a RUSH fan I see. [thumbsup]

Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 02-13-2003, 11:24 AM:

I'm thinking of getting a personalized license plate for my BMW 330i, but I'm going for the European look. Any suggestions?

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-13-2003, 05:30 PM:

quote:
Maine has the highest number of 'vanity plates' per capita out of all the states in the US.
And apparently, Maine is the state where it is least expensive to have a personalized license plate.

Eh, I haven't heard that, but if it's true, I'd be willing to bet IL runs it a close second, because it doesn't cost ANYTHING extra for a vanity plate there. I used to live in that state, and nearly EVERYONE had one.

I had Amateur Radio plates there, which do cost extra. KJ5KX, my call sign. The operator at one of my IL theatres had NE1469 (put a question mark after it).

Drive-In owner I used to know down in KY had LEX-DI.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-13-2003, 05:36 PM:

Joe,

My "GRAPHIC" license plate didn't get delivered until October (a couple months after my last visit to Colorado) It took the tag department six months to fill my order. My normal tag (which I must, by law, keep in my truck somewhere) expires in April. That will make the renewal process nice and confusing.

I'm hoping Oklahoma's new tag renewal laws go "properly" into effect. Oklahoma residents used to pay a gigantic sum in ad valorem taxes for car tags. I paid nearly $900 for the inital tag on my truck. If things go right, my next tag fee should be around $80 or $90 instead of the $300 or $400 I would normally have to pay for that second year of outrageous tag taxes.

I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that lower tag price actually goes into effect.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-13-2003, 06:35 PM:

I'm too cheap to buy a vanity plate now, but I used to have one saying BLAKES.

A friend of mine who used to be the city manager for the Excellence Theatres in Billings (now all Carmike-owned) had MOO-V-MAN.

Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 02-13-2003, 08:00 PM:

I don't have personalized plates, but being a proud '65 Ford Falcon owner....I'm always "Just Falcon Around!" [Big Grin]

Posted by Dick Prather (Member # 1136) on 02-13-2003, 08:46 PM:

In Oregon ham plates only cost extra to have them made. To renew the normal fees apply. I just had a neat set of scenic "Crater Lake" plates made. They don't even ask for the old ones back anymore. K7KTP

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 02-14-2003, 12:03 AM:

A retired drive-in owner here in Washington has the plate SHOBIZ on his Cadillac.

I tried to talk him out of it when he retired, but no dice.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-14-2003, 02:00 AM:

I know this is out of place, but:

Jack, I worked with that gentleman. He is a very good friend of mine, and a wonderful person. He treated me like I was his son. [Smile]

Actually, it was a big Lincoln Town car. He got rid of that thing, and the last time he and I had coffee he was driving something else.

He and I also restored a 1962 Chevrolet Rag Top some time ago, and he took it to Hawaii with him. You should have seen that thing before and after. It was his son's car, and we pulled it out of a mud bank where it was sitting for the better part of 10, maybe 15 years. After mighty groans of protest from my Gran Torino that came equipped with a 250 HP 351 Cleveland engine, we got it over to the theatre. I must have worn out a set of tires on mine, as I was peeling rubber because some of the wheels on the Chev were locked up and wouldn't turn. I literally "dragged" it over there, and made a cool "smoke screen" doing it. [Big Grin]

. Luckly, it was only across the highway from the theatre. It took us the better part of a year to finish it. When we were done, it looked like a new car.

Here is something he made for me as a Christmas Present years ago.

Posted by Mike Rendall (Member # 1499) on 02-14-2003, 05:01 AM:

In the UK personalised plates are exceptionally expensive. For example to have a registration that spells a word (such as the ones that have been mentioned on this thread) you would be expected to pay at least £1000 if not more. There are also rules relating to the age of the vehicle too, i.e. if the plate has a date identifier on it then this cannot be put on a older car to make it appear newer (99% of UK plates have date identifiers on them). I saw a plate for sale that I fancied "M1 KEY" but it was £5000, waaaay out of my price range.

In the UK when you register your car (when it is new) you get issued a plate, and that stays with the vehicle for its life, is it the same in the states, from what I have been reading I am lead to the impression that you have to re-register your cars every year? Can you get new plates then every year?

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 02-14-2003, 06:14 AM:

At least in Pennsylvania, you get one plate and get new registration stickers to put on it every year, although our plates were recently replaced for a new design that included the state website. Years ago, a new plate would be issued every year.

A film-buff friend of mine had: KK - 1933 on his Mercedes plate. When you know he's a fan of the original KING KONG, then you get it, but I think someone thought he was a racist (and didn't know the proper acronym for the klan), and it was stolen.

At the risk of appearing to have a singular obsession (when in fact, I obsess on many things) here is mine:

In my defense, this isn't on my everyday car (which has no vanity plate). This is just the fair-weather fun car (1967 Buick Skylark ragtop).

My boyfriend has: 66 RIV GS predictably on his Riviera.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 02-14-2003, 08:23 AM:

My license plate is my amateur radio call sign as well, which is N3QNJ.

A guy that works with me here has a license plate that says IB TECH.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-14-2003, 02:27 PM:

Darryl,

Good catch! Most people don't even realize it's a custom plate! [Smile]

Pennsylvania's new plates SUCK! They say, "WWW.STATE.PA.US", at the bottom. How freakin' LAME!
The idea was SUPPOSED to be to show the world that Pennsylvania is cool because it's got a website, so we're "with it" technologically speaking. The thing is that if ANYBODY who knows one thing about the Web DOESN'T know that the official website for any of the states is, "WWW.STATE.<Insert your states abreviation here>.US" they are STUPID!

So, in the end, these plates show how STUPID the government is... or at least how stupid the government thinks the people are!

There is a law in PA that says it's illegal to deface your license plate. Rightly so, I think. But, because of the public outcry, they had to amend the law to say that covering the motto at the bottom of the plate is OK. The moment they passed that amendment I went out and covered that part of my license plate with yellow tape!

Posted by Don E. Nelson (Member # 1049) on 02-14-2003, 02:45 PM:

Mine says ..... .. __________
................ .... I 24 FPS ....I
.............. .... . I _________I
most people don;t have a clue that it means anything. film related , suppose the digital projector people would have 30 FPS or DIGITAL.

I copied my E-Mail signature off of someone in this forum.

"Running thru life at 24 frames a second" Thanks to whoever that was. Great question by the way.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 02-14-2003, 02:56 PM:

In New Jersey, each new owner of a car must buy license plates. The plates stay with the car until it is sold to a new owner.

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 02-14-2003, 05:41 PM:

I agree that of all the things for a state to put on a plate, an obvious URL is really stupid. State motto would be quite sufficient.

I had considered IB TECH for my plate, but figured that since it sorta makes out a sentence, at least in license-speak, it would just confuse too many people.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 02-14-2003, 07:07 PM:

Wait until they start to put the state logo in the lower right corner like those annoying TV services. Ummm, of course they will find a way for it to change into a commercial logo every 30 minutes so they can get advertising revenue for the state coffers.

>>> Phil

Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 02-14-2003, 07:15 PM:

In terms of state slogan stupidity, I think California took the cake. From 1997 to about 2001, a very lame attempt was made to mark the sesquicentennials of the Gold Rush (1848) and statehood (1850) on our license plates. The "slogan"?...

SESQUICENTENNIAL--150 YEARS

Essentially a definition. Nothing else. No cool plates such as North Dakota's 1989 centennial offering or Iowa's dueling 1996 sesquicentennial tags, both of which had the year ranges.

Come to think of it, the near back-to-back sesquicentennials were celebrated with a whimper, not a bang. The plates seemed to be a fitting complement to these nearly-forgotten events.

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 02-16-2003, 08:09 AM:

In Va. vanity tags are $25. initially then $10 extra each year. Tags stay with the owner and can be transferred to any vehicle owned by the same person for a nominal fee, year stickers are issued annually but a new plate can be requested at renewal time for no extra fee. This applies to all license plates not just vanity. Tag I saw recently CME2P a urologist I guess.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-16-2003, 01:56 PM:

Bill, the CME2P would never fly in Washington State. I read an article some time ago about WADOT hiring some of the most potty-mouthed employees they could find just to screen vanity plate applications. They are scanned forwards, backwards, inside-out, and upside down to make sure they are "politically correct."

Someone in New York tried to get a plate that spelled "HOOKER" - I guess it was that person's last name, but the plate was still denied. Supposedly, it was taken to court, but I don't know what the outcome was.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 02-17-2003, 03:35 AM:

NDOT has a similar screening process for vanity plate applications. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw "FIJFI" on a Nevada plate in Reno a few years ago... [Big Grin]

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 02-18-2003, 09:20 PM:

One of the owners of a company I worked for in the late 70s was an attorney with the last name of Hooker. He was. of course turned down whan he first applied for his name on his tag. Walter did some legal research and found that there was a provision in the law as written by the General Assembly to specifically allow one to get his surname on the license plate as long as it was not already taken. He reapplied to DMV quoting the law, with all the details necessary and was rejected again. He took them to court, it went all the way to the State Supreme Court but he won. His father and brother were judges, though not in the courts his case was in but it can't hurt either.

In another case somebody managed to get the word shit on a tag thru a computer error, DMV didn't catch it but within a few weeks a citizen complained and they made him give it back.

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 04-20-2003, 08:02 AM:

MINE: Nevada License Plate: "CINEMAS"

My Chief Projectionist: Nevada License "IMAX"

[Smile]

Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 04-22-2003, 03:43 AM:

Once again, poor danish tax-payers gets ruined:
Personal plates costs 8.000 DKK = 1.150 US $ every 4 years - and that's in addition to normal payment. No wonder, You don't meet them every day here.

p.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 04-22-2003, 08:16 AM:

Ioan Allen of Dolby fame....FILMSND [Smile]

Richard Fowler
Kinoton America Inc.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-25-2003, 10:52 AM:

quote:
Ioan Allen of Dolby fame....FILMSND

I didn't know that Ioan went to the University of Notre Dame (ND) [Wink]

(Yeah, I know it stands for "FILM SOUND")

Posted by Andy Muirhead (Member # 712) on 04-25-2003, 06:19 PM:

Personalised plates can be pretty expensive in the UK

I saw an advert this week, CAT 1 is £100,000!
Or, if your name is David, you could splash out on DAV 1D, which is a mere snip at £249,000 - Almost a quarter of a million quid, for gods sake!!

Crazy money!

Posted by Bill Langfield (Member # 818) on 04-26-2003, 06:43 AM:

HEY!

William III: A BMW 330i? Whoh! Just how much do Imax pay projectionists? Any vacancies?

Will: I'm with you, I have an old little car, Ford Laser '95, with no 'vanity' plate.
(BTW I put a pic of my car, my cat, my house, and of the projector's and platters I work with, & me in 'Film-Yak » Upload your forum pictures (Page 12)' Girl friend picture soon.

Is VANITY plate an official term or made-up as in 'Look at that wanker's plate'. As far as I know, they are simply called personalized, as the forum subject title would suggest.

Bill.

[ 04-26-2003, 09:42 AM: Message edited by: Bill Langfield ]

Posted by Patrick McDonough (Member # 1363) on 04-26-2003, 09:03 AM:

i would want my plate to be FLM-BUF.