Black Plate Cars Ad Nauseum

["Wayne Michaels" <baker-michaels@xxxxxxx>]

The only thing a black plate designates is that if the car, as of 1963, was
sold, registered, and stayed in California and still has it's original
"Black Plate" it was always a California car. Many cars could have come in
from other states and been re-registered during the black plate period, and
still have a black plate. California currently will not allow black plates
to be re-issued to a car. If you have black plates and paper work to prove
that the vehicle they are going on once had those exact plates then you can
register them on that car. Bob


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark McDonald" <tomswift@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 9:52 PM
Subject: IML: Black Plate Cars Ad Nauseum


> It has been pointed out to me that a car having a black plate on it is
> no guarantee of single ownership, only that the car has been registered
> its whole life in California (although I guess even that isn't true, if
> you can get the black plates on it later).
>
> I guess this is a classic case of the dictionary definition of a term
> vs. the connotation of a term-- or what the term implies, not just what
> it literally means.  In strict dictionary definition terms, yes, I
> suppose the term "black plate car" only means that a car has old black
> California plates on it, and has presumably spent most of its life in
> California.
>
> However, the connotation of this term is something else.  The first time
> I heard this phrase it was uttered by a friend of mine as if he had
> found a secret cache of some kind of illegal, but highly valuable,
> substance-- "I heard there's this low mileage, black plate ------
> sitting in the back of this garage in San Pedro.  Hasn't been driven
> since 1967.  You wanna go see it?"
>
> I think this term, whenever it first got started, was taken to mean a
> car that was 1) a survivor, 2) relatively unmolested, 3) usually low
> mileage, 4) rustfree, and 6) very, very rare.  If you found a "genuine"
> black plate car you were probably buying from the first or 2nd owner and
> you were getting a car that was a real gem-- even if it needed
> polishing.  At least, that's the way it seemed to me.
>
> However, as time went on, the usage of this term got to be more common
> and unscrupulous sellers started applying it to anything on 4 wheels.
> When I lived in California I saw black plates on cars that were ready
> for the junkyard.  I also saw cars advertized as black plate cars that
> didn't even have black plates!  They may have when the car was new, but
> no more!
>
> Anyway, I don't think this term means what it used to anymore-- it's no
> longer an indication of a rare gem hidden away in somebody's backyard,
> it's just another buzzword.
>
> Mark
>
>
>