Kenneth L. Barton - Mar 9 ’13
Franklin Co.
The early part of the Sxx series was skipped by Passenger since it was used for "Special Plates" - (Limited Use Farm Trucks) and was allocated 000 SAA through 999 SHG. Passenger plates resumed at 000 SHH. U and V series skipped. Plates jumped from TZZ to WAA.
The state name, county name, and plate number appeared in blue through the YPK series, but then changed to black in the YPL series. Kyle Ford reports a high of 982 YPK (Tama Co.) in blue, and a low of 090 YPL (Louisa Co.) in black.
The zero slash plates appear to have started at YYA. Kyle reports 840 YXZ (Polk Co.) without the slash, and 330 YYA (Washington Co.) with the slash.
Iowa has begun the rolling replate process, and Kyle reports that it appears reissued plates are being sent from different letter allotments than the new issues. Here are his notes:
For example, neighbor buys a new car and I replace plates on my old car in Union County on the same day. He gets ZNZ and I get ZKE. Reissues are also being run alphabetically by county name. I've seen YYX plates from Clinton, Crawford, and Dallas, YZK plates from Madison, Mahaska, and Marion, and ZAG plates from Story, Taylor, Union, and Wapello. This leads me to believe the reissues are generated automatically based on number of registered vehicles due for renewal per month, beginning with Adair and ending with Wright. This gives Iowa plate spotters something new to check as there will be an ongoing overall high for new issues (could be from any county) and a monthly high for reissues (in theory should always be from Wright Co. as its last registrant would complete that month's reissue series for the whole state). Talk about confusing!