California license plates use the scheme 9ZZZ999 (that is, “one number, then three letters, then three numbers”).
While walking through the parking garage last night, I noticed that all the tags started with a 4, 5, or 6, except for one car (out of about 30) whose tag started with a 3. This led me to wonder about the complete encoding scheme of California plates. Anyone know it? (For example, I’ve lived in a state where the first two letters of the tag indicated the county where the car was registered.)
It has been my observation living in California that the first digit increases as time goes by. So the first digit gives an approximate time for when the plate was issued.
That would happen if the whole thing was basically one long serial number.
If every letter and number is used (doubtful, since Q looks like O and all that), there are 176 million tags. There are apparently 32 million cars registered in California, so that doesn’t leave a lot of room for encoding.
So maybe the answer is the boring one – simple serial number.
The scheme has changed every once in a while. I remember when it was just 999ZZZ, and I understand that before that it was ZZZ999, though I wasn’t around here then.
Oh yes, to give you a vague idea of timing: My car, bought in August 2006, starts with 5. My wife’s car, bought in July 2007, starts with 6. My old car, bought in fall 1994, started with 3.
There is no encoding – the plates are manufactured in simple serial order, skipping some combinations for readability or to avoid words like “ASS.” Most are issued in the same order, by mail. A relative handful are issued in batches to DMV offices to replace lost or stolen plates on the spot.
The first such plates, issued in 1979 or 1980, were 1AAA000 and so on, on the old yellow-on-blue stock. When they switched to blue-on-white plates in 1982, they terminated the 1-series and issued 2AAA000; they’ve been entirely serial since then. They rolled over to 3 around 1991, to 4 in 1998, 5 in 2003, 6 in 2007, and they’re up to 6K (maybe 6L) now.
Truck plates are approaching the end of the 8 series, up to U or V at least. I don’t know what they’ve got planned for when they reach the end of the 9Z set.
Although I don’t live in California, I do remember sometime around the late 60s/early 70s when I first started seeing CA plates go from 6 to 7 characters, with a “1” prefix. When they used up all of the 1 series, they switched to 2, and so on.
Nope. My pickup truck has a plate with that encoding.
When I first moved here, I had a boring commute, and for fun saw if I could observe all three letter combinations (and all three number combinations). I did (except for the Os and Qs already mentioned.)
You’ll see that for the most part the first digit if the license is correlated with the age of the car.
They went from 3X to 4A at the end of 1997 or very early in 1998. I bought a new car the weekend before the Super Bowl in 1998 and got 4AQZ from the DMV. They skipped over 3Y & 3Z for some reason. As I recall, they went all the way through A-Z in the “4” series.
If you use the right search terms, you should be able to figure out when the change to 5A hit…I remember posting to a thread on this message board about it.
I do not remember how many letters and numbers plates had in the 50’s. But the way it use to work was they would issue all the numbers over time and when they would run out new plates would be issued to all cars. Then as new cars was issued the unused numbers would be issued.
Then the 6 letter digit plates came out.
Then it got where every few years new plates would have to be issued. So the old plates were still good and new cars were issued new plates different. The six digit plate ending up being used up in just 2 or three years.
My first new car as a ute was a 1983 Ford Escort, Georgia tag AYF-218.
In 1984, I pulled into a parking space opposite another car and noticed the tag on the front.
1AYF218. From California.
I went into the bar/restaurant we were in front of and found the owner -luckily a cute girl about my age. Somehow I convinced her that fate was telling us we should hook up. It worked!
From then on, I make sure to read every CA tag I see. You never know what might happen…
Don’t know about CA or its distribution system but like Nametag said about CA plates, in NC the standard plates (XYZ1234) are made in consecutive order at the state prison and a batch of consecutive plates are put in a box and shipped to one of many DMV plate offices around the state, so those that are “bought” over the counter in any one office would more than likely be garaged and driven in mostly in that geographical area. that may be why the ones you see in your area may start with the same or similar prefixes. The first 1000 that are issued out of the Outer Banks office start with OBX, by the way. All of the ones that started with WTF were recalled after the kids giggled at them, revealing their modern meaning to the older folks.
Weird. I didn’t notice the seven-character plates until the early-'80s. Like 1983 or so.
My first car was a hand-me-down from my mom, and it’s plate was XXX 123 (format), yellow-on-black. By the time I got it, the plates had been yellow-on-blue 123 XXX for a decade. My first motorcycle’s plate was 5G8366. Newer ones kept the same format, but added a digit. I can see plate from my '94 Seca II from where I’m sitting. 13Y0241.