Well, my California plates finally arrived from Australia.
Black and yellow, XTR xxx.
I did some research online, and by removing the registration tags one at a time.
Here's what I discovered:
I checked out a lot of pictures of cars online that have readable black and yellow California plates.
Near as I can tell 1967 vehicles had high T's (TRW, TWY) through low to mid V's (VAM, VEL); 1968 vehicles had mid V's (VNK) to high X's (XPV); 1969 vehicles had high X's (XUL, XXP) to the end of the Z's (ZQX). Note: (_ _ _) denotes the actual letters I found for that particular year of vehicle.
Then I did a little archaelogical digging on my plates by carefully removing the registration stickers one at a time and recording them. What I discovered is that the earliest sticker is 1968. It is located in the upper right hand rectangular recess, then the 1969 sticker is in the upper left hand recess. The yearly stickers alternate back and forth from one side to the other: 1970 on right, 1971 on left, 1972 on right. There is no 1973 sticker. There is a 1974 sticker on the right and an OCT sticker on the left. The OCT sticker was on the top of the stack when I bought the plates. The year stickers on the right continue all the way up to 1978.
Based upon this, I can deduce that the plate was issued in October 1968 and it was continuously registered until 1978.
My 1969 Camaro was built in the 2nd week of October 1968, so these plates, originally registered in October 1968, are a pretty good match!
I have written to the Governor to ask him to sign an updated YOM law that would allow black and yellow plates to be put back onto vehicles of the same vintage. I received a reply asking for more information. It stated that the Governor is very interested in this issue. Maybe we a close to getting this resolved.
