[Dan in Pasadena]

Just to add some thoughts:

If you check the CA DMV website, you can put the old yellow on black plates onto cars up to (I think) '62 or 63. There is a guy at the Pomona Swap meet (at least he used to be there regularly) who sells old plates, both restored AND unrestored. You can even put the earlier black print on yellow plates onto older era cars/trucks! Can't remember what years those go on?...up to mid/late Fifties I think. Lots of the low rider crowd have them on their restored 40's Chevy cars. They look kinda neat and certainly are era-correct.

I plan on buying the high quality repro plates in blue to match a personalized plate I will order, then not use the mbut re-register my car with the "original" blue plates. (Have to have them mailed to an out-of-state address, then have someone re-mail them to you.) It is illegal, but contrary to what someone said above, a cop COULD tell it is the wrong plate if he were paying attention AND is savvy enough to know that the number/letter sequence is from the wrong era.

I have a '76 but will use a three letter/space/three number sequence that I remember from my very first car - my Dad's '55 Chevy 2 door hardtop Belair. Sort of an homage to my Dad and my first car as a sixteen year old. Hope this clarifies somethings.

P.S. Contrary to my memory - the second thing to go! - there WERE a couple of years of personalized plates in the blue plate era. The last couple of years, but if I understand it correctly they only used 6 letters/numbers.