Prologue
Of the 26 letters in the Western alphabet, the Q has many distinctions. In Scrabble it's the highest value tile. In letter design circles it's often the one letter that type designers get a little crazy with.
But for motor vehicle agencies it often has another distinction: it is one of the letters frequently omitted from registration numbers. Unlike I and O, which look like numerals, Q looks like either the letter O or the numeral zero. Doubly accursed.
New York plates' relation with the letter Q is quite storied, and the letter turns out to be both celebrated and shunned.
It's possible that New York was the first state to use a Q on plate. Between 1901, when motor vehicles in New York State were first required to be registered, and 1903, when the original law was amended, owners were directed to affix license plates with their initials to the rear of the vehicle. Were any of these owners surnamed Quincy or Quayle? Almost certainly. After 1903 owners were issued numerical registrations and the plates the were to affix now reflected the registration number.
Thus began a very long drought for the letter Q. State-issued plates have often featured letters, beginning with the M that appeared on dealer plates in 1910. Other letters followed: the A on late-issue 1912 plates; serial letters on plates from 1913-1915, including letters beyond Q in 1915; and the low-numbered special plates issued from 1918-1921. But after that letters would disappear for three years, until the 0A-00-00 format plates first appeared in 1925. But Q would have to wait its turn.
The Q Years
The letter Q finally debuted in 1932, the last letter (apart from I and O) to be introduced. And what a debut: it was bold, with a crooked crossbar that extended beneath and to the right of the letter's natural boundaries. For all its typographical boldness, however, the rollout was surprisingly modest: only 100 plates each for the prefixes 1Q through 9Q, 900 plates in all. 1Q through 8Q were issued appropriately enough for Queens County; 9Q was issued to New York County.
The next year all the remaining registrations through 99-99 were issued, with the original 9Q registrations still reserved for New York. In 1935 the Q's were expanded into the two-digit prefixes, with 10Q through 12Q and registrations up to 99. Curiously these Q plates did not top out at 100 as most other two-digit prefixes did betwen 1935 and 1938.
In 1939 the number of held-back Q registrations was reduced to only Q 1, Q 2 and Q 6. 1939 is also the first year recorded for both the single character Q plate as well as Q-suffix plates,
Q - 15Q New York
16Q - 40Q Albany
41Q - 99Q New York
While the recipient of the single character Q plate isn't mentioned in newspaper articles from the 1930s, it does appear in a New York Times article from Dec. 31, 1939, entitled "69,000 'Distinctive' Auto Plates Issued; Fee May Be Asked for Privilege in Future,"on registrations for 1940:
Others who held valued plates through [former Motor Vehicle Commissioner] Harnett's favor but who lost them this year include ... Mrs.James Sheridan, wife of the Queens Democratic leader, who had Q ... Q remain[s] unissued so far.
Commissioner Harnett had just resigned his office following an indictment for bribery.
The Tragicomic Story of 4Q-2
This is the story of a businessman from Queens named Mortimer Dewey Gold. The story comes to us from Ron Marzlock, who interviewed him several times and who secured the photographs used here with his permission.
Mr. Gold was a political mover and shaker whose family business was supplying tombstones for Bayside Cemetery in Queens. Sometime in the early Forties he went to his Motor Vehicle Bureau office to register his automobile. He was given the Queens-based registration 4Q-2. It took no time for Mr. Gold, something of a 'rascal', according to Marzlock, to see the risque humor whenever his registration number was said aloud. (If you're having trouble, think of the ending as "... you, too".) And it seems Gold didn't exactly hide this from his potential audience.
He maintained the same number well into the Sixties, until the fateful day in 1967 when he attended a Republican fundraiser for then Governor Rockefeller. When the governor's wife, ironically nicknamed "Happy", learned about this she was offended. Shortly thereafter Gold was contacted by the DMV that his registration would be revoked. In its place Gold received the less controversial registration MDG.
Photography courtesy of Ron Marzlock
According to Marzlock Mr. Gold kept his 4Q-2 plates from 1957 through 1967 as well as the MDG plates that replaced them. Mr. Gold died in 1990. His widow, still alive at this writing and living in California, reportedly has kept the license plates.
Two-Letter Registrations
As early as 1935 (and probably earlier) the Q appeared on two-letter registrations, both CQ and QQ, issued as all 1930s two-letter plates from Albany. In 1935 QQ-3 was issued to William Hodson, New York City Commissioner of Public Welfare. And according to a newspaper article, Chicago newspaperman John Boettinger applied for and received CQ-3 six days after marrying President Roosevelt's daughter, Anna Roosevelt Dall.
For 1937 CQ-2 was issued to journalist Herbert Bayard Swope Sr. (as well as S and YY-1). The next year he traded up to CQ-1; Herbert Jr. got CQ-4. And in 1939 former New York County district attorney Thomas C.T. Crain was issued CQ-8.
Beginning in 1939 the Distribution List gives a full account of the two-letter plates beginning with Q (as well as a far smaller number of plates ending in Q). Most were issued for Queens County, with certain unexplained sequences going to Albany. In 1939 these were QO (to 25) and QT (to 100). Neither of these have any other significance that I know of nor were they likely issued as vanity plates. AQ, BQ, CQ, PQ, and SQ were also issued for New York, Queens (for Borough of Queens and County of Queens), Albany and Suffolk respectively.
The Q die introduced in 1932 remained unchanged through the 1955-1956 base plate. The only interruption in the run was in 1938, when the two-slogan World's Fair plate called for shorter dies. While not as dramatic, the Q was at least distinctive and readable.
When smaller six inch-by-twelve inch plates were introduced for 1957, a new set of dies were created to fit the new dimensions. It was a sad time for the Q, which was reduced to an O with a sad, stumpy cross member. This sad state of affairs continued the following year with, if anything, an even more pathetic looking Q (at left).
Help was on the way. In 1960 the Q was redesigned, replacing the stubby cross member with a longer, bevelled cross member that extended to the bottom line. It's not clear whether the redesign was in response to complaints from the law enforcement community (most likely) or for aesthetic reasons (not very likely). The timing was providential.
The Blue Base Years, 1966-1972
When the blue base was introduced in 1966, it marked the heyday of the letter Q in New York State. The multi-year base would require far more registrations than the annual or two-year plates that preceeded it. This would call the Q into use far more than before, not the least because its 'place-sake', Queens County, would see an enormous jump in automobile registration over the six years the plate was valid.
For reasons not fully explained, from the beginning two diffferent Q's appear on the blue base: the stubby Q from 1957 and the long-tailed Q from 1960 on. The natural 1966-1967 plates above bear this out. Both were made by Corcraft but presumably on different stamp machines.
How many Qs were there on the road? The last complete accounting, the Distribution List for 1971, indicates the letters assigned through Jan. 1970. The base would remain valid into 1973. But even by 1970 the majority of all Qs had been assigned. Plates reserved for vanity plates aren't listed; we have to extract them from the gaps in the county assignments.
Albany-only prefixes and suffixes
AQ, DQ, FQ (probably not issued), HQ (probably not issued), QH, WQ (suffix only), ZQ
Albany-Queens shared prefixes and suffixes (number indicates start of Queens allotment)
1Q - 9Q (201)
BQ, CQ, JQ, KQ, LQ, QA-QZ (except QH) (201)
TQ, UQ, VQ, XQ, YQ (1001)
Albany prefixes and suffixes shared with other counties (number indicates start of county allotment)
EQ - Erie (201)
GQ - Nassau (1001)
MQ - Bronx (101 prefix/201 suffix)
NQ - Nassau (201)
OQ - Ontario (201/1001)
RQ - Suffolk (1/201)
WQ - Westchester (201 prefix only)
And why is any of this important? By 1972 it was already clear that a new base plate would be issued to replace the multi-year blue plate. In anticipation of the changeover the new dies were used on the last of the blue base plates. Did the new Q appear first on the late blue base plates?
The last three Queens sequences on the 1971 list, VQ, XQ and YQ, didn't appear on the previous Distribution List. It's possible that ZQ was issued after the 1971 Distribution List and in the new dies. But other than that, any new die Q's could only have come from among the Albany allotments or a later issue 'Upstate' issue. The example above, issued in Ontario County, proves this.
Among non-passenger types the Q appears only on motorcycle plates.
The Orange Base Years, 1973-1986
The orange base years would open with a bang for the Q and end in a whimper. The new format, 123-ABC, now allowed for a Q in all three positions. Regular issue plates were numbered from 51through 999. Plates numbered 1 through 50 were reserved as low-cost vanities. The dies which first appeared in the late blue base were the foundation for the orange base: the same rather anemic design used on the 1957 issues.
Not surprisingly QAA through QZZ were issued in Queens, including QQQ, with the lone exception of QBY, issued in Warren County, presumably for the tiny community of Queensbury. Queens also issued the entire XQ~ series. But the Q in the second position appeared throughout New York State, many shared among several counties. The following suffixes were issued by only one county:
AQx Suffolk
CQx Bronx
DQx Nassau
EQx Erie
KQx Kings
MQx Monroe
OQx [not issued]
RQx Monroe
SQx Suffolk
XQx Queens
ZQx [not issued]
The only single Q combination not issued was GQD, presumably because of its resemblance to GOD. It's interesting that of all the three letter combinations where Q might be mistaken for O, this is the only one excluded and on religious grounds.
In addition to the regular issue registrations, motorists were offered the opportunity to purchase 'county clerk' plates: number sequences from the blue base era usually in either the 1A-1234 format or the AA-1234 formats. The county clerk option was not offered in the five boroughs of New York City, however. None of the plates in the 1Q-12Q sequence were issued. The Q did not appear in any of the two-letter sequences offered as county clerk prefixes. It could be carried forward as a vanity, however, though one wonders how many motorists chose to pay the higher vanity charge in order to retain a generic number such as 5Q-7699.
Of course, the full range of vanities available to New York motorists might also include the Q, like this one above. This began with the same restrictions as there were for the blue base (no more than three letters with our without a numerical prefix or suffix), but by 1977 expanded to any six alphanumeric characters.
In 1980 (?), with all the plates in the 123-ABC series nearly exhausted, New York launched a second series in the 1234-ABC format. In order to accommodate seven characters the letters were redesigned to be the same height as the numbers. Late issue 123-ABC format plates featured the new dies.
Unfortunately for Q lovers, the new regular seven-character series skipped the Q in all three positions. (The series didn't exceed BUR, apart from a 'typo' with GAM and rental cars which began with an initial Z.)
Vanities with a Q that use the later-issue die do exist, though they are not common.
The Q also appears in non-passenger combinations, most frequently in the second position on commercial plates. No non-passenger types begin with a Q.
Liberty base years, 1986-2001/2002
The handwriting was probably on the wall for the Q when the Statue of Liberty base was introduced in July 1986. From the get go the letter appears only in the first position, having been banned from the second and third. With I and O similarly banned, and with registrations beginning at 100, only 476,100 Q plates were issued in this series, assuming there weren't any combinations excluded.
Curiously there are two styles of Q on the Liberty base: one with a stubby tail, as in the QAL example, and one with a double-beveled tail, as in the QWA example. Assuming that plates were manufactured in alphabetic order--which may not have been the case at all--the Q goes back and forth between the two styles. Dave Nicholson has seen the stubby-tailed Q on QAL, QGE, QVH, and QZE, and the flared tail Q on QSK and QWA. Die variations are not unusual: there were two versions of the letter A as well, in one instance appearing on the same plate.
Beginning in September 1988 this series was followed by four subsequent series, none of which used a Q in any position. The ban on the Q extended to all non-passenger types as well. As new plates were issued and old ones came off the road, the embossed Q would begin to vanish from view.
The same options to carry over registrations from a previous base plate applied for new registrants on the Liberty base. This could include previously carried forward regular-issue numbers from the blue base era (1Q-1234, CQ-1234); numbers from the orange base era (957-YXQ); and vanities old or new.
Plate QU 22 above is interesting for several reasons. The registration had been issued on the blue base and previous years for Queens County. The QU prefix was not offered as a county clerk option. It may have been carried forward to the orange base and then to the Liberty base, though this can't be proven. The format featuring a centered Statue of Liberty is characteristic of early issue Liberty vanity plates, which would be consistent with a carry forward.
In 1985 new vanity plates were issued using the Azon-Utsch silkscreen process and a completely different type design. (An experimental run of passenger plates was also issued using the Azon-Utsch process, but they were stock A23 4BC format plates.)
Empire base plates, 2001/2002-
The jig was up for the Q by the time the Empire base plate was introduced in January 2001. The ban on the letter in regular issue registration was not revisited, and hasn't been since.
All was not lost, however, as this unusual plate attests. The registration, 262-DQB, dates from the orange base plate when it was assigned to Nassau County. To have survived embossed into the Empire base era, it had to have been renewed when both the Liberty and Empire plates were introduced.
Similarly the QTB-598 plate above was originally issued in the first Liberty series (like QSK above) and renewed on the Empire base. Both plates use a Q design with double-beveled tail which is used only for plates carried forward from previous series. All vanities issued on the Empire base plates are silk screened.
The Empire gold base plates, first issued in 2011, continue the numbering begun on the Empire white base with the same no-Q policy. During the first two-year renewal cycle (Jan. 2011-Dec. 2012) motorists with a passenger (PAS) registration--that is, not a vanity (SRF) registration--were permitted to get the same registration number on the Empire gold base on paying a $20 fee. This could include previously carried forward regular-issue numbers from the blue base era (1Q-1234, CQ-1234) or the orange base era (957-YXQ); or numbers from Liberty base era (QAL 660). Personalized plates renwed on the Empire gold base, Q or no Q, are silkscreened.
Vanity ("Personalized") Plates
Vanity plates with a Q have been available as long as the Q has been available, as the discussion above makes clear. As the definition of a vanity plate, its availability and allowable configurations expanded, it appeared more and more frequently, at least whenever this uncommon letter was actually used. The vanity option was extended to commercial, motorcycle and trailer registrations in the early 1980s (and livery by the late 1980s).
Passenger and vanity plates parted company once the Q stopped being issued in 1988 and disappeared from regular sequences in 2001. This also coincides roughly with the split between embossed and silkscreened plates. Late-issue orange base plates used the same narrow characters used on vanities beginning in 1978, when up to eight characters were first allowed. Vanities with a Q use the letterform that appears in the 592-VQJ example above.
Vanity plates on the Liberty base appear, at least at the ou
tset, with either the standard issue dies for vanities up to six characters, or the very narrow dies specially designed for Liberty plates. (The Statue of Liberty graphic further compressed the space available for eight characters.) It's not clear whether both varities of Q known on the standard issue were also used on vanities. Soon vanities of any length used the narrower dies. In 1985 vanity plate production was shifted to the Azon-Utsch silkscreened process.
All vanities on the Empire base plates use the same silkscreened type design, which closely mimics the embossed typeforms. At this writing I don't actually know what the Q looks like in this style either.
Non-Passenger Q plates
Despite the long history of the letter Q on passenger plates, the history of the Q on non-passenger plates is more like a anecdote. For many types, especially since size standardization in 1957, it would mean the same dies as appear on passenger plates. Yet the opportunity came up so infrequently that in most cases it would never apply, and in those it did we'd be left with only speculation.
Early non-passenger types were distinguished mostly through captions or an identifying letter or letters (such as M for dealer plates or AMB for ambulances). Registrations were almost uniformly numerical. Additional dealer plates for 1918 and 1919 had a suffix letter that surpassed Q, such as the example above. But was Q among the available letters? We just don't know.
The first quasi-non-passenger plate to use a Q was the amateur radio plate, first issued in 1963 on the 1962 base. Those call signs with a Q would have been issued beginning in 1963.
A
Custom base plate was issued for amateur radio operators in, using the 'narrow' passenger dies created in 1984 to accommodate eight character vanity plates. Beginning in 1995 (?) silkscreened plates were first issued, using an even narrower Q.
Perhaps the first truly non-passenger Q appears on motorcycle plates from the blue base era. Once the all-numeric sequence had been issued, plates numbered 101Q through 999Q were issued in Suffolk, Sullivan, Ulster, Warren, Washington, Queens, and Rochester. When the 1234A series was exhausted, plates in an A1234 series were issued. Plates numbered Q201 through Q9999 were issued in Steuben, Suffolk, Sullivan, Tioga, Tompkins, Ulster, Warren, Washington and Wayne counties. The last series, in a 12A34 format, never reached Q.
Registrations for the orange base motorcycle plates were based in part on weight class. Standard motorcycle plates first used all numbers, followed by a 123A45 format, beginning with the letter D and never exceeding K. It seems likely that the Q embargo on passenger plates was probably in effect for motorcycles already anyway.
Motorcycle vanities were first allowed in 1982 (orange base). An embossed Q was almost certainly available on the orange and Liberty bases. Vanity plates on the Empire white and gold bases, like their regular motorcycle registration counterparts, are silkscreened. Vanity motorcycle plates are also available on the American Motorcycle Association, Blue Knights, Harley Owners Group, Purple Heart recipient, and historical motorcycle plates.
Photo credits: 5927-OQ (Schaller); 592-VQJ, QAL 660, QWA 872 (Dave Nicholson)
Hi Ross,
I saw two typos.
The first was in the first paragraph: "It letter design circles it's often the one letter that designers get most creative with."
The second was farther down: "And it seems Gold didn't exactly hid this from his potential audience."
As far as substance - extremely interesting. Thanks. (And I don't even collect NY plates that have letters on them, mostly.)
Posted by: Reid Williamson | 07/22/2012 at 10:25 PM
Thanks for the close reading, Reid. Kind of you not to comment on the style, which could certainly use a little polishing and might just get it -- eventually.
Posted by: Ross | 07/23/2012 at 10:26 AM
No worries about style. This is a great article; thanks for putting in all the research effort.
Posted by: Dmalloch1 | 07/24/2012 at 11:29 PM