BONANZA! Rarest U.S.License Plate Surfaces in Mississippi By Keith Marvin One fine day back in 1873, an English schoolboy, Vernon Vaughan, made an interesting discovery. In going over some old letters, he came across an unusual stamp, one issued in the South American colony of British Guiana in 1856. Delighted with his find, he sold the black and magenta stamp for six shillings, not quite realizing what he had found. The only known surviving example of this issue- it is unique in philately and the most valuable postage stamp in existence, fetching $280,000 -a record sum- 15 years ago. It is worth considerably more today. Recently, Dr. 1856 G. Klotz Jr. of Dresher, Penna., received a reply to an ad he had run in a Jackson, Miss., newspaper seeking old Mississippi license plates. The collector was especially interested in locating a copy of that state's first plate which, issued in 1912, has been regarded as the second rarest state-issued license plate of all time and rightfully so for reasons I shall shortly make clear. The letter was from a non-plate collector in Jackson and it informed Dr. Klotz that he had Mississippi plates for 1913, 1919 and 1921 which he would sell, explaining that he know nothing about license plates but would be interested in an offer. As the Mississippi 1912 plate had been used in 1913 as well and was succeeded by an undated series, the doctor pondered how the owner could determine the 1913 issue since the original series used into 1914 carried the 1912 date on it and wrote the Jackson man suggesting that the plates be sent to him for approval. Soon after, the plates arrived. To his astonishment, the earliest of the three plates was indeed dated 1913 and identical in every way to the 1912 series except for the actual date itself. There is absolutely no doubt in either Dr. Klotz's mind or in mine that he has stumbled on something so rare that its existence is hardly believable, but there it is and, to put it into its proper perspective, he has undoubtedly found the rarest of all state-issued license plates. This find, which is similar to the discovery of the British Guiana stamp by the English schoolboy 112 years ago and, like that stamp, Pr. Klotz's recent acquisition is, to all intends and purposes, priceless. "The plate is exactly similar to the dated 1912 plate,'t he explains, "including color, format, size and gauge of metal. It even has the edges bent over to give added strength just as the 1912 does. The '3' in the '1913' has not been altered from a '2' of the 1912 plate," he continues, "and it is not certain if the plate has been repainted. "It has been examined by several knowledgeable collectors and they cannot decide. If it has been re-painted it was done a long time ago because the paint has yellowed and some has flaked off leaving rusty spots. The paint on the 1912's was very sloppy as is this one so one cannot tell in the usual ways if this is repainted." I don't know how many of the Mississippi 1912 plates exist today but they are very, very few and far between and in Roy Garson's article on the rarest U. S. plates initially published in CAR COLLECTOR Magazine for August 1978 and subsequently reworked into the ALPCA NEWSLETTER, only the first plate issue of Alaska in 1921 and the Hawaii 1922 were scarcer. However, as Hawaii enjoyed territorial status in those days, it doesn't apply. As for personal experience, I am familiar with the Mississippi 1912 issue, having owned one -number 912- for several years. This plate is now in the Swigart Museum at Huntingdon, Penna. Plates Number 2221 and 2567 are in the Hartung and the Merrill collections today. There are presumably more but not many more and their tremendous rarity is due to two interesting reasons. The plates were turned back to Mississippi often for a cash rebate, and the material of which they are made is very soft, pliable and prone to corrosion, appearing to be a type of alloy containing a considerable amount of lead. Before we go into the details of the 1912 plates were recalled, it is of particular interest to note the number of Dr. KIotz's 1913 -5019 - which seems inordinately high for the time. Mississippi was a rural state arid the attention it provided for road construction and maintenance was almost non-existent with the resulting registration figures being low. I just wonder if when the plates with the new die (the 1913 series) appeared, if possibly a new numeric sequence was started, for example, at 5000? Could be.   Mississippi 1913 lIcense plate owned by Dr. Roy G. Klotz Jr. of Drescher, Penna. (top), and the same plate compared wIth the 1912-dated series.Both plates are identical In materIal, design and color and measure 12"x 6". Plates were replaced by an undated series in 1914. Prior to 1912, the rank and file of automobiles in Mississippi was unregistered although in certain communities local ordinances required the payment of a fee and a record kept of the car by number although I don't know of any pre-state local Mississippi plates. One of the cities, which kept track of its motor vehicles in this manner, was the capital city of Jackson. By 1912, however, most states were registering and licensing motor vehicles and by a Mississippi State legislature Act on March 16th 1912, effective June 1st, the State Auditor was required to issue license plates. These were issued in pairs, the number 1 set being issued to Dr. W. H. Aikman of Natchez. And although Dr. Aikman was delighted with his number which he would continue to use for some years, one H. C. Lawrence of Jackson thought otherwise. Mr. Lawrence had duly registered his Haynes automobile with the City of Jackson and paid the required fee. Then the state plates were issued; he ignored them, continuing to operate his 40-horsepower Kokomo-built Haynes through the streets of Jackson and its environs. And for awhile, he was ignored by authorities. Eventually the law took its course and Lawrence was arrested for failure to comply with the new law. He promptly brought a legal action against Mississippi declaring that in his opinion the law and the license plates were unconstitutional. I have no intention of going into all the details surrounding this action here and for those who would like closer scrutiny of the goings-on, I refer them to the article on Mississippi in the December, 1972 issue of THE ALPCA NEWSLETTER. Suffice it to say that the litigation of all this resulted in a great hoo-haw and as cars still had to be registered, it is assumed that it was decided to simply continue on with the existing 1912 series plates. It's speculation, to be sure, but I think it is a safe assumption. With such a case on the court docket, it would have been foolish to proceed otherwise. But things develop slowly and the suit involving the State vs. Lawrence was exception to the rule. It eventually went before the Supreme Court of Mississippi on May 26th 1913. According to the report in the December, 1972 ATPCA NEWSLETTER, we have this: "A brief summary of this case reveals that the required license plates cost 17½ cents per pair to produce and the labor required in registration consisted in making 9 entries on one line in a book kept by the Auditor for this purpose, requiring no more than five minutes time. It was further acknowledged that the defendant had paid all ad valerian taxes due the city, county and State and a license to keep said vehicle for-hire to the public had been paid and in addition, the privilege tax had been paid for conducting a public garage, and the automobile itself bad been duly registered; yet, the fee it desired to obtain varied from $5 to $25, and was, therefore, a measure which was unconstitutional and void. Frank Johnston, Asst. Attorney General, prosecuted the case for the State against Messrs. James R. McDowell and Tim E. Cooper, both of Jackson, for the appellee. The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendant, and the judgment of the Circuit Court was affirmed." Well, that was that. Meanwhile, what was going on as far as the registration of motor vehicles was concerned? What, indeed? As the result of the trial, it appeared that the whole business of the Mississippi license plates had been unconstitutional and a new State Legislature Act, dated February 19th 1914, required that the sum of $28,040 be refunded to automobile owners for registration fees paid for the years 1912 and 1913 since the provisions of Chapter 108, Laws of 1912, bad been declared null and void by the Supreme Court. As a Mississippi State Legislature Act approved March 27th 1914 effective April 30th required the Auditor of Public Accounts to supply a front and rear permanent plate to all automobile owners, it nay be assumed (or at least I an assuming) that the old plates were turned in at the time of re-registration at which time the good motorists of Mississippi got their money back. We know that the new, undated 'permanent' plates were just that- 'permanent' - or at least until January 1st 1919 when Mississippi began issuing annual dated license plates. This constitutes the record, such as it is, of Mississippi's first license plate series, but it doesn't tell the entire story, especially relating to such plates as nay have been dated 1913, such as Dr. Klotz's find. Speculation is never a satisfactory medium to the serious historian but it is better than nothing, so I present the following theory: The plates were in full play when Mr. Lawrence bucked the establishment. But, like almost anything else, time dragged on before the case came up- a time span of nearly ten months! What could the state do but continue registering cars under the normal procedure? And this is exactly what I believe Mississippi did. After all, it would have been ridiculous to do otherwise. Certainly the state expected to win the court case and even if it hadn't expected to win - a ridiculous assumption on the face of it- it would have been even more ridiculous to suspend registrations of motor vehicles. So the 1912 plates were continued into 1913 and my guess is that the dies weren't changed immediately. Yet, apparently somewhere along the line they were as may be attested by DR. Klotz's 1913 plate number 5079. Why then, you might ask, haven't any other 1913 Mississippi plates come to light? And this is a reason-able question. My answer to this, operating once again on speculation, deals with the law of averages. For one thing, let us assume that the greater rank and file of plate holders- dated both 1912 and 1913-re-registered their vehicles after the new undated plates came out in 1914 and turned in their earlier markers for their refunds at that time. This would take care of the greater majority of them. Let us further assume that the very few who didn't go for the refund kept their plates. What did they do with them? Where did they put then? Unlike the New Englander who never threw anything away, few were probably nailed to a barn wall as they were up in Vermont and New Hampshire. The Mississippi plates were extremely delicate and if not cared for would have simply corroded or rusted out in a short period. The fact that so few of the 1912 dates plates survive indicates this. What is more interested to me is when the decision may have been made to redate the plates to 1913 and whether there might be an obscure entry on official records to indicate that there was a reason in the first place, that the decision was made and it was done. Or could it have just been done without any official sanction? I believe this might have happened. The discovery of Mississippi 1913 Number 5019 opens up an entirely new chapter in plate history and what interests me personally is that a specific series could have remained dormant as long as it did. It is quite possible that in time further examples of the 1913 series may come to light. If I lived in Mississippi, I'd really start looking.   A BIBLIOGRAPHY "Mississippi", MPCA NEWSLETTER, December 1972. "The Twenty Difficult Plates" by Roy A. Carson, ATPCA NEWSLETTER, June 1980. "Where Did That Car Come From?" MoToR, September 1912. "License Plates: Extinct and Extant", by Keith Marvin and Arthur 3. Keck, UHV AUTOMOBILIST, Oct. 1957. "Plate Spotting: Like Postage Stamps But More Fun" by Keith Marvin, HCC Gazette, Nov.-Dec. 1975 Copyright 1985 by Keith Marvin. All rights reserved.