Yemen | Europlate blog

Old plates from Yemen

June 22, 2015

ANTONIO BARRAGAN

I have the opportunity to access the photo archives of my close friend Bernt Larsson and I’m glad to share many of these valuable pictures with you all. Some of these are quite old and fortunately I’ve been able to scan the negatives and touch them up for cleaning (speck of dust, scratching, etc.). I hope you will enjoy them.

There will be more, and both Bernt and I are grateful to Vic Brumby for his initiative to start the Europlate blog.

The first batch of negatives illustrate The Aden Colony (1937-63) and Aden Protectorate (1937-62) (or Federation of South Arabia as from 4/4/62) plus a photo from the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen from the 1950s. On 18/1/1963, the two Adens merged to form The Federation of South Yemen.

Independence from Britain came on 30.7.1967, when the short-lived Federation of S.Y. was renamed the People’s Republic of South Yemen.

Description: Armed vehicles carrying machine guns manned by HM the Imam's bodyguard. Location: Yemen Date: 1950-1959 Our Catalogue Reference: Part of CO 1069/677 This image is part of the Colonial Office photographic collection held at The National Archives. Feel free to share it within the spirit of the Commons Please use the comments section below the pictures to share any information you have about the people, places or events shown. We have attempted to provide place information for the images automatically but our software may not have found the correct location. For high quality reproductions of any item from our collection please contact our image library

Fargo brand (US) army vehicles carrying machine guns manned by HM the Imam’s bodyguard.
Location: Yemen Date: 1950-1959. License Plate: ‘YMN 445‘

Now follow a series of South Yemení images taken by a friend of Bernt Larsson at the beginning of the sixties. Some vehicles have two plates for the free transit between the different states of the Federation – presumably.

Lahej 138 & FG 64 & L 8356-Mukayris 340 Abyan (ADN 60s_BL)

The Land Rover on the left has ‘Lahej 138‘ . The right one carries two plates – ‘L 8356‘ (ADN) and ‘Mukayris 340 Abyan‘ and the third has ‘FG 64‘ for the Federal National Guard .

Lodar 68-Dathinah 164 (ADN Audhali-Dathina 60s_BL)

‘Lodar 68‘ from Audhali Sultanate in the front and ‘Dathinah 164‘ painted on the bumper.

Two registration in one Land Rover plate: ‘Abyan 1122‘ and ‘Yafa Sahel 398‘. A Hillman Minx is driving by, L 234 from Aden Colony.

Yafa Sahel 139-Abyan 470 & L 6849 (ADN 60s_BL)

Two registrations in one plate: ‘Yafa Sahel 139‘ and ‘Abyan 470‘. On the right one can distinguish an Opel Rekord with the plate ‘L 6849‘ from Aden Colony and a circa 1958 Standard Vanguard Ensign L 4355.

Another double- registration. ‘PHS 26′ (unknown code) and ‘1 ADN 223‘ from the government (1) vehicle series.

Finally a jeep from the former Yemen Arab Republic with the license plate ‘ J‘A Al-Yemeniya 906 ‘

The Yemen Arab Republic, also known as North Yemen and as Yemen (San’aa) existed between 1962 and 1990 , when it united with PDRY (South Yemen) 22/5/90, forming Republic of Yemen.

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We cannot resist adding another of Bernt's Aden pictures, because it is carried by a most unlikely vehicle for the tough conditions in the Yemen area, This is a very rare Goggomobil TL van, more info on which is found at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goggomobil

L 7728 from the 1960-63 Aden Colony series. We cannot resist adding another of Bernt’s Aden pictures, because it is carried by a most unlikely vehicle for the tough conditions in the Yemen area. This is a very rare, lightweight Goggomobil TL van, more info on which is found at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goggomobil Bernt Larssen archive

Aden’s Indian period.

April 4, 2013

1914-37 – Aden was originally administered by the Bombay Presidency as a dependency of British India. The style of the mainland India plates was for smaller area code-letters, than the serial numbers. Here is rare evidence of Aden’s Indian plate background on Aden 1238. These cars would have travelled outside Aden carrying ‘BI‘ international ovals!