TIL: Michigan issued the first ham license plates

On Twitter, one of the accounts I follow is Michigan’sPast. His tweets are always interesting, and I’ve learned a lot. One of his recent tweets included this photo of the display of Michigan license plates at the R. E. Olds Museum in Lansing, Michigan:

What jumped out at me was the W8AHV license plate in the third row. I didn’t know that Michigan offered ham radio license plates that far back. I re-tweeted this, and a fellow named Rory replied, “According to this article. 1939 may have been the first year in Michigan. http://www.pl8s.com/hams.htm”

This article, written by Mike, W1DGJ, who is now unfortunately, a Silent Key. He writes,

After completing an article about Amateur Radio Call sign auto license plates for the January 1995 issue of the American Radio Relay League’s official journal, QST, I felt it would be appropriate to put together a collection of first year of issue ham plates from all the 50 states. My intentions were to also document this information for posterity. This unique collection had been attempted by plate collectors in the past, but to my knowledge it has never been successfully completed. Not something for the Guinness Book, but I feel it is an important part of Amateur Radio history.

The article includes this photo of his collection:

This display features two Michigan plates: the W8IQS plate from 1939 and the W8ZQV plate from 1954. Here’s why:

The first plates with ham call signs on them were issued in Michigan for 1939. The Great Lakes Amateur Radio Telephone Association of Detroit under the leadership of James Strang, W8NFR, proposed the special plates for hams . They petitioned the Secretary of State, Leon D. Case, to allow the request be granted under legislation that allowed a maximum of 3 letters and 3 numbers. It was more correctly a personalized or vanity type and 400 to 500 of these plates were issued to hams (ref. March 1939 QST). After the first year the officials felt the system not administratively workable and Michigan discontinued issuing them the following year. Michigan did not start issuing official ham plates until 1954. The next plate issued with a ham call sign on it was a 1950 Florida plate that is generally considered to be the first “true” ham plate.

In addition to this history, the article is full of interesting stories as to how W1DGJ was able to find and acquire these license plates. Here’s an example:

One first year of issue ham plate was sent to me by the widow of a Silent Key asking the plate be added to my collection in his memory. The only problem was the plate had been repainted in silver with his call sign in black paint. He had displayed his expired ham plate on a second vehicle and did not want to be stopped by the authorities for using an expired plate on his automobile. I tried a little lacquer thinner on the back of the plate and found it removed his paint without effecting the original paint underneath (most likely an enamel paint). Under his workmanship I found an excellent condition first year plate for my collection. Unfortunately I did not have the foresight to photograph his repaint job that protected the plate for many years.

I was sorry to read that W1DGJ is now a Silent Key himself. If anyone knows what happened to his collection of amateur radio license plates, I’d be interested in knowing that. Also, if you have any remembrances of W1DGJ, please comment below.