New York doctor (blue base variant)

New York doctor (blue base variant)
 

Some of my plate collecting friends think me some kind of expert on New York State license plates. And I'll admit I know a fair amount about them, still far short of being an expert. The plate above proves the point.

Among the many types of plates handed out in New York State to professional employees is the doctor or 'MD' plate. New York has issued plates for doctors officially since 1939 and probably unofficially for a few years before that. The 'blue base' like the one above was issued between 1966 and 1973. By 1966 there a lot of doctor plates being issued. Until 1966 most base plates were valid for one or two years. The blue base was the first to stay on the road for seven years.

In order to accommodate the demand of the multi-year plate, several numbering systems were used:

• MD prefix (MD-1234)
• MD suffix (1234-MD)
• MD infix (2MD-345, 12MD-34 and 123MD-4)

We know this to be the types issued because the New York Department of Motor Vehicles published lists of all plates issued and their county of issue. The last known list issued during this period, dated 1971, has the registration 825MD-9 as the highest issued in the MD sequence. It would be easy to assume that this sequence would continue to its natural end, 999MD-9 and still provide enough plates. What's more, all the plates from 100MD-1 up are identified in the list simply as "Albany Surplus".

That would be the end of the story, a fairly dull one at that, were it not for the plate that came up on eBay and that I nabbed (for a penny, by the way: there are still 'bargains' to be had).

It brings up several unanswered questions. The design of the blue base dies allowed for only six characters and no more than three letters (letters were wider than numbers) and a single hyphen. This means that once the previous series were exhausted, there was an allowance for adding a third letter. But why in this sequence?

MD-prefix plates might have been issued with a third letter, but where? MD-A123 is a one possibility. The location of the hyphen would help to separate the significant MD prefix from the registration letter A. But MD + a letter plates were already allowed as special registration (i.e. 'vanity') plates, such as MDA-1. How to distinguish these from 'genuine' doctors? Far more likely, especially in light of the plate we do know of, is MD-123A. Yet no such plate is known to me.

The same holds true for MD-suffix plates. Unlike the prefix plates, however special registrations were not available with suffix letters. Motorists could not request the registration 1-MDA. Have any A123-MD plates survived? Again the answer is no.

So here we have an MD-infix plate with a letter suffix. Perhaps what is most peculiar to me is the location of the lowly hyphen. New York blue base passenger plates separated letters from numbers with a hyphen wherever possible. There are few examples (if any) of letters surrounded on both sides without a hyphen on at least one of them (such as 11M-7 in the case of county clerk registrations). I might have expected to see this plate as 3MD-87C.

Where did this sequence begin? With 1MD-1A or 1MD-10A? Assuming the former, and that the usual 24 letters (excluding Iand O) were used, this is the 6,819th plate issued in the series. Where are the other 6,818 that came before and the unknown number that came after?

As they say so often, "More research is needed."

Comments

[John Rotella]

1MD-1A and 1MD-10 were not in the sequence. 1MD11-A through 1MD99-Z, then 2MD11-A through 2MD99-Z, etc, The plate pictured here was probably issued very late in 1972. On January 2, 1973 the new blue-on-gold series was issued for both new and renewal registrations, at DMV offices and by mail to those offices. The renewal period lasted through December 31, 1973 so it took 12 months to take the gold-on-blue off the road. The 1973 series was issued through June 30, 1986. "Albany Surplus" means that the plate was not assigned to a particular office when the book was published, as they made these final combinations sparingly and doled them out in small amounts to avoid making too many as the plate series' run was ending. Other "Albany Surplus" plates (in the gold-on-blue series) were in the 1F passenger series which were handed out in smaller than normal blocks to offices who had depleted their original allotment of traditional coded plates, awaiting the delivery of such. Cayuga County (Auburn) and Oswego County (Oswego) each received a couple of thousand in the 1F series, in mid-1966. Starting around November 1972 the series UA was shared by 2 counties (Oneida and Onondaga) again in small blocks for which accountability was not made. Another was ZZ, I had this plate issued to me in July 1972 from the Onondaga County (Syracuse) office. It was 307-ZZ and the county received the block from 201 to 500. A very small number for a rather populous county and these ZZ plates were "reserved" for friends etc of the DMV chief here, of which my father was one. Another such special series here was 15S-1 to 15S-99, issued starting in July of 1972.

[John]

Suffix letters were indeed available as special plates. I had 146-JR, or neighbor a few doors down had 2-GMB and 12-GMB.