Measurements of manufacturer plate

[Clem]

I am currently reproducing the manufacturer license plates for 1017 and am asking for help to establish the exact measurements. Will any who has such a plate please advise me of the exact size. Thanks much.

Keith

[John K.]

Keith, if you can get hold of one of the souvenir plaques from the TACA Chicago convention of several years ago, it would show you a very accurate reproduction of the Tucker manufacturer's plate. I believe they are the same size as the originals. Black paint on bare metal (steel or aluminum), but with the various number fields filled in with TACA convention data. That would be a good start for you, in my opinion.
John

[TuckerCar]

8-3/4 X 6-3/8"

[TuckerCar]

John, he's talking about the Illinois license plates, not the data plates.

[Tucker Fan 48]

Does anyone know who has the original #17 Manufacturer Plate?
It's seems like I've seen it in a photo somewhere. I think I read
that a few years back a few owners swapped plates so that the
number of the plate matched their car number.

Any idea what plates Dave Cammack has in his collection? Many
of the Jenin cars had plates but very few, if any, matched the
car number.

[TuckerCar]

Don't know who has 17 but here's what Cammack has:

Cammack's Plates

DSC01260.jpg (144.1 KiB) Viewed 1322 times

I have 58. Eric Breslow has 42. I think the HCL has 60-something.

[Tucker Fan 48]

Here's #91 in Tucker #1011

PlateNo91.jpg (91.03 KiB) Viewed 1315 times

[John K.]

Sorry, guys! I need to read questions more carefully in the future.

[Clem]

I would like to thank all those who responded with their ideas on the reproduction of a license plate.

Keith

[Tucker Fan 48]

Automotive writer Bill Snyder had #76 in his collection. He used to write for
Car Collector and Car Classics Magazine. Does anyone know if he's still around
and where?

[Tucker Fan 48]

Interesting that with almost 200 plates, between 1948 and 1949, that we only know the
location of around a dozen of them and only about five of those are on cars.

[TuckerCar]

Interesting that with almost 200 plates, between 1948 and 1949, that we only know the
location of around a dozen of them and only about five of those are on cars.

There's a guy here in Chicago who sells vintage plates. Years ago I would always ask him if he had any and he'd say no, but he knew some guy who said he had dozens of them. I ran into him again a couple months ago and he said the same thing, but that the guy wouldn't give him any details - was supposedly somewhere in Chicagoland. When I bought mine a couple years ago, the same guy sold about 4 of them on eBay. I think he was in Canada somewhere. So either the license plate dude is referring to the same guy in Canada (who sold his collection already), or he just doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm guessing the latter.

[Prototype]

I have the resources to reproduce these plates with 100% accuracy. I have access to the tooling used for "regular" license plates along with the alpha numerical dies. I have never seen one of these in person, but I assume they are aluminum. Most all states switched to aluminum in 1945. However the dies for the smaller size plates will have to be milled from billet stock with the reliefs for the letters and numbers in the center. The down side is they might not be cheap. I estimate the cost to be around $250-$300 apiece. This is just an estimate, the cost may be more or less. I wouldn't need an actual plate for reference, but a very good full scale color picture. Let me know what you think.

[Tucker Fan 48]

The last plate sold on e-bay for five to six hundred so it seems like you'd have a market. I would think the more you could make the cheaper the price would be. There are at least 80+ missing numbers for 1948 and 90+ for 1949 so you could stamp out a lot of numbers.

You might even come up with a good back story about how they were sneaked out the back door of the plant right before it closed and how you bought them at a garage sale on the 6300 block of South Halsted in Chicago or maybe they were found in a barn in Auburn WA after being locked away for 50+ years.

By the way, you're not in some sort of prison where you have access to this equipment are you?

[TuckerCar]

I don't have anything against making reproductions, but to this day there still a lot of items that were made around the movie that people are still, either intentionally or unintentionally, trying to sell as originals. The dealership banners, the hood emblems and the 17x22" poster/brochures [and Tucker convertibles] are rampant in this.

I am certainly not saying anyone here would intentionally do that, but we need to make sure they are marked as reproductions somewhere so it doesn't become a problem later.