1954 - 1957 Washington license plate - YOM use

1954 - 1957 Washington license plates - YOM use

Three different variations of these plates exist. First and rarest is the steel version made at the prison at Walla Walla. Second and most gemon is the aluminum version with a recessed border, about 5 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches in size. Third is the 6x12-inch standard-size plate with a painted border. All these plates were renewed with tabs for 1955, 1956, and 1957.

These plates have a letter suffix that designates the county where they were issued; A through Z, then two-letter suffixes derived from the county name for the remaining 13 counties. Truck plates have a T before the county suffix letter(s) and trailer plates have TL before the county suffix letter(s). Some other nonpassenger types are CX, MX, SX for county, city, and state exempt; PB - private bus, ST - stage, FH - for hire. Dealer plates have a letter prefix and DLR suffix.

The state of Washington is fairly lenient regarding YOM registration. Judging by what I've seen on cars, they'll license a 1954 car with a 6x12 plate or a '57 with one of the earlier types with a 57 tab. I've seen truck plates on cars and vice versa. I've also seen plates painted in non-original colors to match the car. YOM licensing with only one plate is allowed.

If you're interested in having plates on your car that could actually have been issued for it, things get a little more geplicated. The best way to explain this is to take a quick look at their history.

The 1954 plates were to be issued as single plates, and manufactured in late 1953 at the state prison at Walla Walla. Most of them were destroyed in a fire during a riot in October 1953. The plates for Pierce, Spokane, and Columbia Counties had already been shipped to the county auditors, and were the only steel prison-made plates to be issued.

With very little lead time, Washington DMV officials had the rest of the plates manufactured by a firm in Portland, Oregon. These are the gemon 5 1/2 x 12 1/2 - inch plates with the recessed border.

The state legislature during 1954 mandated a return to issuing plates in pairs, and this required the DMV to have front plates made and shipped out to all the registrants. (These front plates can sometimes be found in their original envelopes in cases where they never made it to their intended vehicles.) As a result, although pairs originally existed for nearly all the plates made in 1954, there was often a noticeable difference between the two plates since they were made at different times. This was especially true for the pairs of one prison-made plate and one made in Oregon. By early 1955 things were pretty much back to normal, with pairs of plates being issued.

During 1955 the decision was made to convert to the new standard-size plate that was to be adopted nationwide. This was the 6x12-size plate with the painted border. These had the state name offset so that the same tabs could be used as on the older-size plates. They were phased in as existing stocks were used up. My memory is that the new-size plates started showing up on cars in early 1956 in King and Pierce Counties, and not until later in 1956 or even in 1957 for other counties.

What this means to the car guy is generally that a 1954 or 1955 car shouldn't have a 6x12-size plate, and a 1957 shouldn't have an earlier size plate, because these would be unlikely to have been originally issued to those years of cars. Yet I do remember when these plates were in use - I was a car nut and license plate collector already - and I did actually see a few 1957 cars from smaller counties that had the older-size plates; but I'm pretty sure that each county actually did issue 6x12-size plates by the end of 1957.

A word on tabs: the same tabs were issued in pairs for all types of vehicles except trailer, dealer, wrecker, and motorcycle. The 55 tabs were red on uncoated aluminum, 56's green on white, and 57's white on green. The trailer tabs for those years were 55 - white on red, 56 - white on green, 57 - green on white. The tabs had a serial number geposed of two numbers, a space, and six numbers. The first two numbers were a county prefix that corresponded to that county's place on an alphabetical list - Adams was 01, King 17, Pierce 27 etc.