Heritage Plate Book

To coincide with 100 years of vehicle registrations in Victoria, I am writing a commemorative publication to celebrate the event. If you're a Heritage Plate owner, past or present, or have any connection to Heritage Plates, you can assist and be part of this historic occasion.

This books content will focus solely on Heritage Plates and their history, from their humble beginnings in 1910 through to their current prestige status and popularity in modern times. I will be covering all aspects of this numerical registration system which makes up an important part of Victoria's motoring history.

If you're familiar with publications such as the James Flood books of motoring, I can assure you my aim is to produce a publication of the highest standard such as these. I will endeavor to leave no stone unturned in my quest to collate a correct and factual historical reference on a topic I am very passionate about.

Over the last 8 years I have amassed a rather large collection of Heritage Plate related material which has  formed the backbone of my writing content and over recent months I have met many other Heritage Plate owners and enthusiasts who are just as enthusiastic about my project and only too willing to assist.

As one of the features of this publication, I am highlighting in detail, the first 100 plates. With the help of a good friend I was recently able to secure original documentation that records the original owners of plates 1 to 100 from 1910. These invaluable records have now set me a new challenge of following these plate numbers through to the current day owners. Each plate within the first 100 will be featured on their own pages in the book with as much information on each number as I can possibly find.

I am currently making good progress in making contact with current day owners of plate numbers 1 to 100. As word gets out it's becoming a little easier with phone calls and emails from complete strangers coming my way, although there are some owners/numbers who I have had no luck in tracking down thus far. I am remaining optimistic. I already have much of the early historical information on these plate numbers but there's sometimes many pieces of the puzzle missing. In most cases I can trace a plates ownership from 1910 through to the war years only to lose track of it's whereabouts for 20 years until it reappears in my records in the 1960's. It's these gaps in each plates life I wish to fill. 

So here goes another request! If you know of any current day Heritage Plate owners, if you've ever known the owner of a low numbered Heritage Plate, if you recall anything about a low numbered Heritage Plate, I'd love to hear from you. That small snippet of information you know may seem trivial to you, but may be an important piece of the puzzle for me.

Every plate has a history. I may also feature any plate regardless of the number if you can supply an interesting story about it. Many plates have been in the same family for decades and sometimes on the same vehicle since it left the showroom. If you think you have anything of interest please don't hesitate to contact me. Full credit will be given to any submissions. 

Photographic submissions are most welcome. Those old photos you found in a shoebox under Granddad's bed are just begging to be published!

For the record - I will not be publishing names of any of the current day owners in my book (unless they really want me to) Any information or contact details obtained by me for this project will be kept in the vault in my head. I will respect your privacy. In turn, please don't email and ask me for the contact details of a current plate owner as I will not disclose that information. I may however pass on a question or your details to them. I do hope you can appreciate the sensitivity in this matter.

I will keep you updated on the books progress, in the meantime you can check out my first book on Victorian number plates below :)

Maurice Mangiagli 

Victorian Number Plates - a complete history

What started out as a reference source for myself ending up becoming a book, Victorian Number Plates - a complete history. 

This publication which I completed in 2005 covers every number plate type ever issued in Victoria, from taxis to provisional plates, motorcycles to rally cars and every type of personalised, custom and pretty coloured plate available up until 2005. 

With the assistance from fellow members of the NPCC (Number Plate Collectors Club of Australia) I was able to collate everything there was to know about Victorian number plates. I really never expected interest in this book to go further than the NPCC and for that reason didn't bother to have it catalogued with an ISBN, although in the last year it's found its way onto the bookshelves of many motoring organisations including the VACC, AOMC, and VicRoads even ordered copies for use in their offices. In recent times it's been finding it's way into the homes of many Heritage Plate owners even though there's only one small chapter dedicated to Heritage Plates. 

Overall there's over 500 photographs and 150 pages of information. I do still have a few copies left from the initial run if any one is interested and have been weighing up my options on having it published properly in the near future.

The cost is $40 plus $7.40 for an express post satchel.