Department officials are especially thrilled because, for nearly two years, they haven’t known what to do with the 1.5 million Beautiful Ohio plates manufactured in early 2008. Now, Hunter said, they expect to sell all of them well before the end of the year.
The idea for a new plate was introduced in late 2006 as a mandatory replacement for the aging Sunburst series. License plates have a design life of about six to 10 years, Hunter said. The process of introducing a replacement takes about two years.
But just prior to the release of the Beautiful Ohio plate in early 2009, the recession hit hard. Department officials decided the timing was bad for adding a replacement plate fee for Ohioans renewing their tags.
Then, like Cinderella, word of the new plate’s beauty reached the public, along with the fact that 1.5 million of them were lingering unused in a Columbus warehouse. That’s when the department decided to release the plate as an option at the same price as the Sunburst plates.
The rest is a license plate’s dream come true. After decades of plain two- and three-colored Ohio plates, Beautiful Ohio burst on the scene like a fairy tale rainbow.
“Ohioans just like having a completely unique and different option that they have never had before,” Hunter said.
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