Best Plate Awards

ALPCA Best Plate of 2022: Hawaii

Hawaii

Past winners

Historical Note

by Jeff Minard (#495)

1973: Convention Notes from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

"The first Certificate of Award was given- now called the Best Plate Award. Pennsylvania was given the award for its 1971 issue, Wyoming for their 1972 plate and Prince Edward Island, Canada was given the award for its 1973 plate- all at once as a starting point. It was several years later that ALPCA gave the award to Northwest Territories for the 1970 Polar Bear plate, since it became clear that that this was a continuing issue and members wanted it to get an award. It was nominated every year anyway, so we marked its first year instead."

Background was that we did not have such a program in place before 1973 although we talked about doing such a thing- it's work to start it up. When in Ottawa, we really needed to honor the 1973 PEI plate as that year's winner, but lots of folks wanted to honor the NWT 1973 three-color issue- since it honored the RCMP Centennial with the yellow added to the blue on white. But it seemed odd to all of us, Canadians in the audience as well obviously, to honor the 73 NWT when it had started in 1970- the year before our program started. Honoring the 1970 NWT also broke the tie between NWT and PEI for 1973. Canadian plates were very competitive then for this award- the US plates, apart from the WY western graphics and the SD Rushmore, had little new to show until the Bicentennial kicked in a few years later. The PA 1971 was the first US Bicentennial plate - 5 years early. We did not actually do the 1970 NWT award until a couple years later.

Bottom line is we honored the Canadian plates very well, but needed to add the NWT for obvious reasons. By 1974 it was a simple red on white again, and was not nominated, so the first year was the best year.