My son lives in Oklahoma a little town located between Oklahoma City and Lawon, which is in Comanche County as far as I know.
When him and his wife were home last summer they gave me a 1940 Oklahoma license plate, the number starts with a 13 then a hyphen (sp) then four more numbers.
Since my other son has a 1951 Chevy 4dr sedan, he have his brother a 1951 Oklahoma plate, which also starts with the number 13.
I was wondering if the 13 would stand for Comanche County and if someone could let me know if this is the case.
Thanks in advance,
Bob
A large number of states use to have county and/or zone numbers as the fist digits/letters on their license plates. I know that California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming did. In the case of California the practice was suspended in 1941. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are a few of the states that still identify the counties on their plates. With the passage of time and the purging of old data bases it is sometimes very hard to find out if a state used county designations on their plates.Bill?
DA.... I goggled OK license plates and found a whole time line for the plates.
According to the info contained there-in, OK started using county designations in 1940, using a number. The number system proved to be very difficult so in 1963 the state went to letters. The information does not list what county used what number/letter....Bill
Bill,
Thanks for the information, I appreciate it
Evidently the numbering system that Oklahoma used in the 1940/50's was really confusing because the system was based on county population, #1 being the most populated. It would seem that #13 would be way down the list in population.
It would appear that Oklahoma started the term "OKY" when they started the practice of abbreviating the spelling of Oklahoma on the the license plates in the early 1930's.
Remember the movies, etc. showing the dilapidated, overloaded vehicles fleeing the Dust Bowl, with many of the plates saying OKLA. 8) ....Bill
Bill,
I have posted a photo of the plates, notice the Okla on the '40 plate, but on the '51's Oklahoma is spelled out
Opps, I forgot to attach the photo to my previous posting.
Notice the difference in how they put the state in
The web site for the lic plate info is.... www.oktagagent.com
....bill
Quote from: Wm Steed on June 05, 2009, 12:04:40 PM
Evidently the numbering system that Oklahoma used in the 1940/50's was really confusing because the system was based on county population, #1 being the most populated. It would seem that #13 would be way down the list in population.
It would appear that Oklahoma started the term "OKY" when they started the practice of abbreviating the spelling of Oklahoma on the the license plates in the early 1930's.
Remember the movies, etc. showing the dilapidated, overloaded vehicles fleeing the Dust Bowl, with many of the plates saying OKLA. 8) ....Bill
Not an uncommon practice at the time, many states did similar, and South Dakota continues the practice to this day.
You might want to look up ALPCA - Auto License Plate Collectors Ass'n - the largest plate collector club around. They have info going back to day one from most states/provinces, etc. Oklahoma and North Dakota were the only two states to use the letter "F" on the license plate to designate it belonged on a Ford car!