2012 Top Specialty Plate Sellers
Ohio State University, 23,249
Veteran Army, 23,158
Cardinal Plate, 21,528
Historical, 20,744
Vietnam, 18,876
We’ve compiled a database of specialty plates Ohio motorists requested and the revenue they generated in 2012 on our interactive page at MyDaytonDailyNews.com.
In bygone years, the Ohio license plate was a humble alphanumeric identifier stamped out in a two-color scheme that some bureaucrat picked. But license plates don’t have to be boring, at least in Ohio where drivers can select from 252 specialty plates.
After Gov. John Kasich signs a new bill into law sometime this month, the menu will grow to 255 choices.
Ohio drivers can shout out their support for cops, cattlemen, firefighters, freemasons, scenic rivers, coal and more. You can tell your fellow travelers to “Celebrate Kids,” “Choose Life,” “Donate Life,” “Share the Road,” “Support Our Troops,” “Fish Ohio” or “Visit Our Zoos.”
You can announce on your bumper that you love cats or dogs or horses or that you are “pet friendly.”
Or you can thumb your nose at North Carolina’s “First in Flight” plate with Ohio’s “Leaders in Flight.”
Ohio offers 58 different plate logos for colleges and universities. Last year, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles sold 1,392 UD logo plates compared with 185 Wright State University logo plates and only one touting Sinclair Community College.
Ohio State University was the top seller among all specialty logo plates with 23,249 sold, generating $602,525 in scholarship money for the university and $289,060 in extra fees for the BMV. The Ohio State University marching band plate — TBDBITL — sold another 329 tags.
Some require membership or licenses, such as the Realtor ‘Sold on Ohio’ plate or the Civil Air Patrol or Amateur Radio plates. Others are reserved for military service members and their families. But most specialty choices are open for any motorist to buy.
The specialty plates generally cost $15 to $25 more than a standard one. Specialty plate sales generated $3 million last year for university scholarship funds, research efforts, children’s sports leagues, foundations and counseling programs and more. The BMV received an additional $2.6 million in fees in 2012, according to state records.
Some specialty plates do not generate revenue for outside organizations. For example, no one profited from the sale of 10,242 ‘One Nation Under God’ plates issued last year.
Ohio has 8.9 million licensed drivers and 11.8 million registered vehicles.
Last month, legislators passed House Bill 110, which Kasich plans to sign into law. The measure creates specialty plates for ‘Nationwide Children’s Hospital,’ ‘Power Squadron,’ and for holders of the Combat Action Ribbon or the Combat Action Badge. And on Tuesday, state Sen. Troy Balderson, R-Zanesville, introduced yet another specialty plate bill to create the ‘Ohio Statehouse’ plate.
Jim Fox, a plate collector who at one point had 30,000 plates from around the world, said the specialty plate trend started in Florida with the space shuttle ‘Challenger’ tags offered for sale.
Florida and Texas led the nation with hundreds of speciality options and other states joined in, said Fox, of Cleveland and a backer of Ohio’s Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame plate. “Why? Like everything else there’s cash behind it. Once state entities realized there was money to be made, they allowed all these applications,” he said.
Fox is author of “License Plates of the United States” and past president of the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association.
Ohio’s menu of plates goes beyond what is offered by neighboring states. Michigan gives its drivers 61 options, Indiana 78, Kentucky 88 and West Virginia 94, according to websites for those states.
Fox said specialty plates are not a big hit around the world. Other than America and Australia, countries generally require standard tags, he said.
No matter what plate you choose in Ohio, they’re all made right here in the Miami Valley by the inmates at Lebanon Correctional Institution where prisoners make about 172,200 plates a year.
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