- All Tennessee license plates dated eariler than 1915 are known as Pre State Plates.
- Examples are known to exist on leather with aluminum numbers,porcelain and stamped steel with embossed numbers.
- Early porcelain plates had bright colors some red and white some blue and white, Tennessee has always had a bright array of color on their license plates.
- This might partially explain why Tennessee License Plates are the most desirable plates in the world.
- Starting in 1915 the State of Tennessee started issuing plates to auto owners. They were sold in sets in all years with the exception of 1943,1944,1945 and 1954. This website only deals with Tennessee plates dated to 1957. In 1957 the Federal Government mandated that States have uniform rectangle plates, all States had to have plates the same size.
- Motorcycle plates from Tennessee started in 1916, earlier plates are in question.
- Tennessee motorcycle license plates were stamped in state shape 1936 - 1965.
- Truck plates started in 1920 and had Truck embossed into them, years 1931 - 1936 were marked C for commercial.
- Starting in 1936 Farm plates were made available, Farm was stamped into the plates from 1936 - 1939.
- In 1940 - 1957 Farm plates were marked simply with an F/1 plus higher numbers.
- Tennessee had a lagre variety of speciality plates, some used by Governor, Gov. Staff, Senator, Represenative, Judge, State Patrol, Sheriff, County, City, Fire Dpt. Special Organizations, plus in 1954 the Tennessee Front Plates embossed with City names, Scenic places or Church and Military orginazations.
- Tennessee Counties are numbered from 1 - 95 , so the highest County number seen will be 95 for Van Buren County.
- That being said 96 prefix plates were for the Tennessee State Patrole.
- Tennessee plates had many design modifacations through the years to advert date changes.
- One cool thing to notice about Tennessee license plates is the fact that Tennessee is spelled out only on the 1936 plates, keep in mind that this site deals with plates dated 1915 - 1957.
- Disabled Veteran plates were made available in 1951 with distnictive red white and blue paint schemes.