The Plate of the Week award this week goes to Bill Southwick for a "first-of" shot of the new Air Medal plate. This was one of four plates authorized by Acts 112 and 113 of 2023: Pollinator Habitat, Afghanistan & Iraq Veteran, Blue Star Family, and Air Medal. This is the first such plate spotted since the Acts were signed into law in March 2023. Thanks Bill!

Here's a new high for the In God We Trust plate type from Jonathan Ortmann. As you can see, this plate has a sticker well, which implies that many of these plates were made since we don't see the map outline yet. For all current highs, be sure to check out the Highs page!

Ross Clinchy shares this picture of what appears to be a low-number Press Photographer plate, but what is actually a personalized plate of the same type. It is very rare to spot a personalized PP plate so we are grateful to Ross for sharing this!

Speaking of Press Photographer plates, the Pew Charitable Trusts account on Instagram shared this awesome picture of a PP plate in the late 1970s. The left photo will open full-size for your viewing pleasure. The photo originally comes from the Library of Congress.

Chris Wentzel sends in this picture of a Ringing Hill Fire Company plate without a sticker well. Whenever a plate has neither a sticker well nor a map outline, that means it was made in the short span of time after the requirement for registration stickers was dropped and PennDOT decided to use a map outline of the state in place of the now-unused sticker well. This is the first spot of such a plate.

The Plate of the Week award again goes to John Clark for a "first-of" shot of the new Dealer - Multipurpose plate. All Dealer plate types were redesigned in October 2022 and eventually made their way to dealerships. One thing to note: the legend of the sample plate for the redesign reads "MULTIPURPOSE DEALER", but "DEALER" was dropped on the final design. Click the link to see the same plate and more history about this type.

Believe it or not, this is a new high for the Friendship Hook, Ladder, Hose, & Ambulance plate type from Mike Alfonse. This type began in 2009 so not even one plate per year is issued, on average. For all current highs, be sure to check out the Highs page!

Nick Tsilakis shares this new high for the U.S. Navy (Active Duty) plate type. These Active Duty types came out in 2017 and were offered for all five branches of the U.S. Military, as well as a redesigned PA National Guard type. All six types have the "A/D" suffix and each type has a numeric block reserved. Head to the "Military & Veteran" page, then type "Active Duty" in the search bar to see all of the number blocks.

Clayton Moore submits this picture of a 1924 Passenger plate. Back in those days, plate length varied by how many characters were printed on the plate. For Passenger plates, 1 - 9999 measured 6" x 10", 10000 - 99999 and A-1 - A-999 measured 6" x 12", and 100-000 - 999-999 and A-1000 - A-99999 measured 6" x 15". The "A" series started after number 999-999 was reached. This is the first image of an "A"-series plate under A-1000.

Mike Alfonse sends in this picture of a personalized Emergency Vehicle plate. This is the first spotting of a personalized EV plate with the map outline - thanks Mike!

The Plate of the Week award goes to John Clark for this "first-of" shot of the new Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine plate. This plate was announced in 2022 but the first plate was observed in 2024. This college is located in Erie. Great shot, John!

Then and now. These two Classic Car/Vehicle plates represent the first plate issued dating back to 1977 from Clayton Moore, and the most recent plate spotted by Richard Than, a new high. The "C" prefix was added in 2004 after the series hit 99999. Then the graphic base was added in 2013. All variations of this plate are still in use today. For all current highs, be sure to check out the Highs page!

Mike Alfonse spotted this personalized New Car Dealer plate. Starting in October 2022, all Dealer plates were redesigned and replaced; businesses which had any of the various Dealer types were required to hand in their existing plates once the new ones were sent to them. This is a "first-of" image for this site.

This quartet of pictures comes from John Clark, all schools and all new highs!
Cathedral Preparatory School
Ohio State Alumni
Ridley School District
Villanova University

Lastly, we have a new high for the Apportioned plate type, spotted by John McDevitt. Apportioned plates started in 1982 at AA-00000 on the yellow base, using AA thru now AH across four bases (AC was skipped).

The Plate of the Week award goes to Mike Alfonse for this "first-of" shot of the new National Guard plate. Active Duty plates came out in 2017, all with the "A/D" suffix and the 90000 block being reserved for National Guard, but it's thought that the National Guard type wasn't issued immediately since there were still plates from the N/G 0000 series in PennDOT's inventory to be distributed. Naturally, this is also a new high too! For all current highs, be sure to check out the Highs page!

Koby Vinokor sends this incredible 1909 Pittsburgh plate. The city of Pittsburgh issued plates in 1908 and 1909 and both years had two varities: one-seat cars and two-seat cars! For 1909, white-on-brown plates were for one-seaters and white-on-pale green plates were for two-seaters. Pittsburgh plates are incredibly scarce in collectors' hands. Thank you to Eric Taylor's PorcelainPlates.net website for the info!

Here's another "first-of", a personalized Delaware Valley Golden Retriever Rescue plate with the map outline. Yours truly spotted this one.

Here's another high from Mike Alfonse, this one for the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. plate type. This type came out in 2006, which means that about 17 plates are issued each year, on average.

Last this week we have yet another variation of a D.A.R.E. sample, sent in by Devan Ciemiewicz. Check out the link to see the others!