The 1936 Massachusettes License Plate

My

Sam Kaplan, my paternal grandfather, used to hang his old license plates from nails in the rafters of his garage. Before WW-II cars in Massachusettes had both front and rear plates. During the war steel was in short supply and they went to just as single plate. After the war they resumed the the two plates.

He died and eight or nine years later when my grandmother passed away I salvaged a bunch of old family photographs from the attic and took the license plates from the garage before the house was sold. Nobody else wanted them. My don is now Keeper of the Photograph Archives.

A bout thirty-five years later I listed the plates on Ebay, all except for this one. I don't think that there are all that many license plate collectors out there but people who own vintage cars will pay through the nose for one of the correct model year. It was well worth the effort of moving them from a nail in New Bedford to a nail in North Miami. I kept this one "just because".