NW License Plates & Restoration

Here are some recent restorations! We're thankful for all of you out there who keep us busy. It's always fun seeing all of the different plates that come into our shop. The summer is always a little bit slower around here with vacations and making time to enjoy the warm weather, but we're working away on plenty more.

Make sure you are following our page to see more videos, pictures, and information about the history of Oregon license plates.

- Oregon 1956-60 Restoration -

Here's a set we recently completed for a customer in the Portland area. This is another set that looks pretty good at first glance, but when you look closer, there's some definite reasons they chose to have us restore them.

A lot of these blue plates faded, it's not uncommon to find them with the blue completely faded away. You can see that starting to happen on these plates, the bottom one especially is light compared to the spot where a sticker protected the paint from the sun.

- Oregon Motorcycle Restoration -

At first glance, this plate might seem like it didn't need to be restored, but if you look closely, you can see in the top right corner, the aluminum has a big crack in it. That is a very common issue with aluminum motorcycle plates. The vibrations of the bike often caused one or both of the top holes to crack. This style of motorcycle plate was issued from 1968 to the middle of 1971.

- Pacific Wonderland Restoration -

Here's a set we recently did for a customer. These originally were in pretty good shape. We likely wouldn't have chosen to restore these, as they had just some minor wear to the paint, but when the customer asks, we deliver.

- Washington Fire Survivor! -

A customer is southern Washington reached out to us about helping restore this plate they had for a vintage trailer. Their shop had recently burned down and this plate was damaged in the blaze. Thankfully, no one was hurt, they were able to rebuild a bigger, better shop and this plate was able to be restored to like-new condition.

How cool are these?? Easily one of the lowest numbers we’ve had in the shop.

- Washington 1932 Restoration -

Here's a recent restoration we did of a 1932 Washington. Someone had started to restore it in the past, but gave up after priming it.

- Alaska Non-Resident Fisherman -

Here's a small plate we restored for our collection. Alaska has a ton of cool and odd license plates, so when we spotted this one, we knew we needed to add it to our collection of Fish and Wildlife related small plates. It really cleaned up well. We have a 1953 Resident Fisherman plate as well.

Here's a cool story...

A collector from New York was contacted by a friend when he found an old Colorado plate in a box of plates he acquired in Pittsburgh. In it was this plate, a 1916 from Hinsdale County, Colorado. It's a mountainous county in the San Juan range of Southwest Colorado. From 1916-1932, Colorado allotted blocks of numbers to each county before later switching to the more common county code system.

This plate is the earliest verified number issued in Hinsdale County in 1916. In that year, there was only about 400 residents in the county, so the state only allotted 15 numbers to be issued to motorists. Of that 15, only 9 are known to have been issued, so that makes this a pretty rare plate, found of all places, in Pennsylvania.

We love that we get to learn history like this and work on unique license plates. Thanks to for sharing the history of this plate and trusting us with it.

- Tennessee 1953 Restoration -

A local here in Albany asked us to restore this plate for him as part of a trade. These state-shaped Tennessee plates are pretty cool, but the curves can be a challenge when sanding the plates.

This is a truck plate. Tennessee used a P over the weight class to identify trucks. I believe this would make this a 1-ton truck plate.

- Oregon 1952-55 Restoration -

This plate was restored recently for a customer in Hood River. Oregon used this silver and black base from 1952-55 and issued year tabs that went in the upper right corner. Up until 1950, the state always issued you a new license plate (except during the Stock Market Crash and WW2), but starting in 1951, they introduced metal year tabs that were used from 1951 to 1960. These preceded the stickers we now use today to validate our vehicle registration. In '50 and '51, the plates still had the year stamped in the corners, with slots for a metal tab, but from '52 to '55, they left the year blank.

Another happy customer! Watch out for this '56 Ford cruisin' the streets of Gresham.

I'm getting really bad at remembering to take before photos. 😅

Here's some recent restorations coming out of the shop. You might've seen the '32 Idaho before. We restored that previously, but it came back to us when the customer wanted a flatter finish on the plate. It looks much better now, I think.

- Idaho 1932 Restoration -

Check out this great restoration we finished up this week! This plate took a while to bring back to life. When it first arrived, we expected it to be a standard rusty plate, but after we sandblasted it, we realized the rust was much deeper than it looked. It took a lot of filler and sanding to fix, but the result turned out beautifully.

Another happy customer! We love seeing pictures of plates we restored on cars.

It's always fun when customers send you low-digit plates!

He told us he got this pair out of a barn along with a bunch of other pairs. He paid $100 for the whole lot, what a score! These are headed back to Corvallis to go on his '32 Ford.

Here's a little behind-the-scenes on this Washington truck plate.

A lot of aluminum plates come to our shop with torn bolt holes or cracks. One method you can use to try to repair these is products like JB Weld, but the best way is to weld those spots so that the repair is strong. You can see on the first picture, we filled the holes by pooling the new metal. After that, we just grind it down, smooth it out and redrill the holes. Then it's good as new!

Here's another recent motorcycle plate restoration. This one required welding to fix the upper bolt holes. That is a very common problem with motorcycle plates. This style of plate was issued from 1968-1971. From 1936 to 1962, all Oregon motorcycle plates had a M prefix before the numbers, but from 1963-1971, they dropped the prefix before bringing it back at the end of 1971, when a new design replaced this one.

Some recent restorations we finished up. My favorite was the Idaho skier, such an iconic design!

Check out this iconic Idaho Potato Plate!

Easily one of the most iconic plates in America, the '28 Idaho Potato was one of several years Idaho featured a spud on a plate. This plate turned out beautifully compared to when it came in the shop. It was solid, but completely rust covered. The surface area of the spud presented a new challenge to straighten and then paint, but we were really happy with the result.

If you collect plates, do you have one of these in your collection?

Oregon 1971 Motorcycle Plate Restoration!

This is a recent restoration for a customer in Hillsboro. This is a variant type of the blue and white motorcycle plate that was issued from 1968-71. It has the coloring of the earlier plate, but Oregon switched to the new dies for the blue and yellow motorcycle plate that was issued between the end of 1971-74. Between 1968 and 1974, there were about 180k motorcycle plates issued. It's estimated between 4,000-8,000 of those plates were these variant types, so they can be hard to find.

This plate had to have the top two corners welded. The vibrations of a motorcycle made it very common for aluminum plates like these to crack in those spots. For this reason, we end up welding most motorcycle plates that come into the shop.

This spring has been busy! Swapmeet season is in full swing and things outside of work are happening more, but we're still getting our restorations finished! We've been moving quickly, so I didn't get before photos of this batch of plates, but we were really happy with the finished products.

Here's a low-digit 1938 truck plate we restored for a customer. The T prefix stood for 'Truck'. In states like Washington, any size of truck was issued a truck plate, but in Oregon, trucks under 1.5 tons were issued the same style plate as a car.

This plate was brought to us by a customer in Corvallis who had a pair. He asked us to restore this plate for his truck, as it was the worst condition of the two. He was so happy with the result that he sent us another plate the very next week.

We're one week away! Join us in Salem, OR for the first annual Pacific Wonderland License Plate Meet next weekend, April 27th.

There will be 15+ vendors, awards, displays, lunch, and good times. If you can't join us this year, mark your calendars for next spring!

Here are some process shots from our last post. You can see the original condition and the welding. It's so satisfying to see something like this come back to life.

Here's a rare sight. Early Oregon motorcycle plates were issued in sets. You had the back plate, with the slots on the top, and the front plate, a two-sided plate that went on your front fender. It is very uncommon now to find a complete set still together. We were very excited to be asked to restore these for a collector in Portland.

The front plate had some corrosion that required welding to fix, but after some magic by Kevin, the set is looking just as good as they did back in 1923. "They turned out perfect" - customer.

Here's another set of 1940 Oregon plates we did recently. The challenging plates are fun to do, but we also love restoring the easy plates! This set is off to Beatty, Oregon.

105 year old motorcycle plate restoration!

Check out this beautiful motorcycle plate. This was one of the New York plates we acquired last year to restore. Like the others, it was rusty and had a lot of pitting to fix before painting on the black.

We got a new display made for this years show at the Portland Swapmeet. It runs until Sunday, come by and say hi.