Presumably for collecting the bigger taxation amounts?

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Stopping above Nice on the toll-booth rest area, was 116189 RS, my first of the 2002-onwards Tunisian Foreigner series – Régime Suspensif – ‘given to foreign workers who pay taxes monthly’.   (Don’t we all?)

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Dropping our Editor Paul at the Milan airport on Easter Monday, the less-common Italian Consular Corps plate was seen parked on a Kia 4wd:

Italian Consular Corps for South Korea, at Malpensa airport, Milan, April 2012.

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The Mercedes Benz Museum at Stuttgart was an impressive visit, though few plates were of interest.

They have made a good facsimile of the Vatican plate borne by the first Popemobile which Benz supplied in the 1980s.

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Though the Swiss don’t have vanity plates as such, it seems that one can obtain an interesting out-of-sequence tag:

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In Calais I was surprised to find that the local fast-food joint was delivering their delicacies on Luxembourg-registered mopeds!

Long-distance Pizza?

Albania was occupied by Italy during WW2 (1939-43), and dedicated Italian plates were issued to the few vehicles in circulation there.    Probably they had no plates before – or they were made up of goatskin, which hardly lasted the year between those annual emission tests ……

Italy issued some great extra-territorial plates whenever it erected its flag in some fortunate corner of the world.   Rhodes, Cattaro and Eritrea are examples.

Here, from Trezzo, is a plate from the Eritrean Liberation Front fleet of semi-military vehicles, all now abandoned in the shifting sands, but awaiting your visit with a screwdriver.     (Take some bail money with you in case the plan goes wrong.    And some long books.    It may take some time to organise your evacuation – you will certainly miss the 2014 Convention!)

The ELF operated between the 1960s and 1990s, so this plate may be of that period.

Interesting that opponents to the ‘government’ were able to obtain official-style plates.   We know that neighbouring Somalia has long abandoned plating their militia Toyota pickups.

This ‘font’ is characteristic of Ethiopia, which supports the ELF, so probably these plates came by way of aid to their administrative HQ at Tent 14, Dune 32,883, Boiling Desert.    A great place to fight over.

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CITES

After WW2, several international missions operated in Italy, to assist in the post-war recovery and their personnel were issued a fancy orange plate marked with the initials ‘CITES’, which Roberto Solbiati has kindly decoded for us as:

CIRCOLAZIONE TEMPORANEA in ITALIA di ENTI STRANIERI .

To make an acronym that they could read, they put ITALIA before TEMPORANEA.
So the sequence of words is :
C – Circolazione (Circulation (licence))
I – (in ) Italia
T – Temporanea (temporary, for duration of posting)
E – (di) Enti (entity, organisation, mission)
S – Stranieri (strangers, foreigners)

(Temporary Licence for Foreign Organisations in Italy.)

The series ran from 1947 to 1952, we understand.

The SITES plates ran alongside the ‘EE’ plates issued to foreigners who purchased Italian cars there, to export to their home countries. (EE=Escursionisti Esteri=Foreign excursionist/visitor)

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I will add more pictures of the  other Trezzo plates which made me gasp, in a later Blog.

There he ran this Citroen 2cv, 0390 A 07 – the 390 th. registration in the province 07 – Eastern Louoma.      There were no roads and the Citroen was the ideal vehicle for the terrain.    Chad had been independent from France since 1960, when it had formed part of French Equatorial Africa.    As usual in French Africa, numberplates were made up with stencils and white or silver paint, often in this characteristic font.

The anonymous picture (with the bumper attached) came to the Blog via Jim Gordon in West Oz, but Jim says it was not he who took it…….

Taken by an anonymous cameraman, seemingly in London during the 1960s, we believe. On a Hillman Husky.

This anonymous shot shows the Hillman Husky bearing a home-made VN oval on the bumper. The bumper was missing on the later shot, by Vic Brumby in Notting Hill Gate a little later, below.

The owner told Vic Brumby, when questioned, that he was an  ’educational missionary’  and that his next posting was to Tchad.   He gave me a picture of his car in his pre-Viet Nam posting – BK = Medan,  Sumatra.      This was a well-travelled Hillman!

A well-travelled Hillman Husky in Medan, Sumatra (BK) before re-registering NTB 3621 in Viet Nam, then Tchad.

First, the original  Dealer (Motor Trader) plates had been changed a few years back, from red on white with Dealer initials and a low number (usually painted).                    ASM 3 is a 1981 example:

These changed to US-dimensioned,  pressed plates, thought to be in annually-varying colours, which showed the abbreviation  DL, followed by the initials of the Dealership (LR for Land Rover),  and then a serial number.

Antigua Dealer during the 2000s - Land Rover agency

2012 sees another Trade Plate change, with a complex all-silk-screened design, printed black, green and green on a white backgrounded US-size plate as shown below.   This dealer, Premier Motors,  has plates 1, 2 and 3 for their use.     This plate is un-drilled, as it is displayed loose from inside the vehicle, through the front or rear window.

In 2007, Antigua hosted a round of the World Cup Cricket series, and the authorities issued a batch of commemorative plates for the most important participants/ distinguished visitors.

I don’t think they remain valid for Antiguans to use, but this plate survived for the pleasure of  Europlate members!   (Update) CWC 028 was among those to pass through the Europlate Easter auction at Trezzo and is now in the hands of a keen collector.

Cricket World Cup Commemorative 2007.

Current government plates for senior people are in a very pleasing colour combination of green on dusky yellow.   Ministers have yet another series, without any legends, in yellow on royal blue, MP and a low serial.

Antigua Government personnel from 2000, pictured 2012.

Antigua Member of Parliament

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None of the old AG prefix plates remain, though I did see one of each ‘P’ and ‘PA’ , which were subsequent issue, on scrapped cars.

Until 2000, when the new, US-style series began, Antigua often used a characteristic letter style, which helped to separate them from the identical  ’P’  registrations issued by neighbouring islands in the West Indies and elsewhere.    They made up the digits with straight lines replacing the curves of numbers and letters.

Antigua Government vehicle, pre-2000, with stylised digits.

The smart annual tax disc for the country, below:

Antigua tax disc 2012

An excellent visit, where we found the Antiguans to be most hospitable and cheerful – and no grim looks when they see us photographing licence plates!     Members may know that we risk being arrested in many places these days, as we go for that  special shot!

For sure in the red field on the left part of the plates there were the letters ´VU´ and the flag of this islands. Front and rear plates were ident and they didn´t seem to be of paper. Right beside there was a ´CD´-Oval.

All researches delivered other colours and appearance of Vanuatu-Plates.

Of course i found the mass of wrong examples and the possibility of offshore-registration in vanuatu, but they always look quite different…

Further i found that there really is existing a vanuatu registration with this number for a Porsche GT held by the mysterious GT-Group. This dubious firm consists of mailboxes spread around the whole world and sells all kinds of licenses.

I´m sure this car haven´t ever seen one of the islands of vanuatu. It´s much cheaper to use a fantasy-registration. The riddle is why nobody else discovered such type of vanuatu fake yet.

I was able to obtain two copies of the English-language version last week via a pal who was over in Italy and liaised with Marcello.

It is a very detailed, 170-page work, with 200 black-and-white photographs of Vatican plates old and new.

‘License Plates of the Vatican City State’ is  a must-have addition to each of our libraries.   Marcello’s contact email is:        marcellogallina@tiscalinet.it    

He plans to be at the Easter Europlate Convention near Milan.

Vatican City Plates by Marcello Gallina

Then, AY 230 – Alderney, Channel Isles (GBA)

and Hong Kong (HK) ( a  re-issue, as AY 995 is quite old now, on a new car.)

No identifying ovals, unfortunately, but I do remember where I took the pictures!

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Perhaps the most confusing set of identical plates was issued in the Windward Islands.    One had to chase the car and interview the driver to obtain the island of issue, as they hardly ever carried an international oval….

GRENADA (WG) on an MG TD in Newmarket, GB in 1964. P 2734

ZA army towed gun 2005