Bumper crop: St. Louis collector makes a living off license plates

Paul White of Shannon, Mississippi, is on a quest to collect license plates from each of the 82 counties. In less than four years, he has found 55.

Terry Hammer pulls a Montana license plate from 1955 out of his collection of more than 100,000 plates. He keeps most of them boxed and sorted in his south St. Louis basement.

ST. LOUIS — Terry Hammer owns one car — and 100,000 license plates.

The second figure is fluid. Every day, some come into his south St. Louis home and some go out. He spends more than 70 hours a week buying, posting and selling license plates. They hang from the rafters on the third floor of his duplex and fill cartons stacked floor-to-ceiling in his basement.

“It all started with one box,” said Hammer, 57. “Then it got crazy.”

Shop License Plates, his online store, carries more than 120 categories of plates, from armed forces to university boosters. While the pandemic revived an interest in all sorts of collectibles, license plates needed no such jump-start; they have been on cruise control for decades. The hobby is accessible and, mostly, affordable: A few dollars at a local flea market can get you started. For dedicated enthusiasts, the metal rectangles represent the lore of the open road, a penchant for design or a fascination with history.

Terry Hammer holds an antique car license plate from Arkansas. Crates and boxes full of license plates are stocked in his south St. Louis basement, the headquarters of his business, Shop License Plates.

“It’s geography. It’s travel. It’s the economy,” said Jeff Minard, of the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association, which formed in 1954 and publishes a bimonthly magazine called Plates.

Minard, who lives in Dallas, joined the organization six decades ago, before he was old enough to drive. Now that he is retired, he has winnowed his collection from thousands of plates to about a hundred. A few — ones with iterations of “Jeff,” for example — he’ll never part with. Among his favorites is a 1942 Hawaii tag, riddled with bullet holes.

“There’s a story there,” Minard said. “Where has this been?”

Hammer’s customers collect for all kinds of reasons. Some are looking for every year from a particular state. Or every state during a particular year. Others are drawn to alphanumeric or color combinations. Hammer recently sold his entire stash of 1963 Indiana plates — to a South Dakota resident.

Jon Marland of Rhode Island has a magic number: 1437. It reminds him of his dad, who once owned a truck with that sequence.

Jon Marland of Rhode Island keeps a display of license plates he finds with the sequence "1437." The number reminds him of his father.

“You have to focus on something,” said Marland, a retired pipefitter.

Paul White of Shannon, Mississippi, is a Johnny-come-lately to the pastime. He was already in his 60s when he noticed a nearby barn that looked as though it had been wallpapered in rows of embossed aluminum.

“I thought that was the coolest thing,” White said.

The physician and novice woodworker decided to devote a section of his workshop to plates from each of the Magnolia State’s 82 counties. He’s 27 away from his goal but has managed to nab the elusive Issaquena, the least-populated county in the United States east of the Mississippi River.

Shop License Plates seeks to be a repository of esoteric facts such as that. Hammer researches each state and creates tables that decode plate abbreviations, designs and time periods. His chart for Mississippi is at 179 lines and counting.

“We are trying to help educate people about the history behind their license plate,” Hammer said.

John Ward of Mississippi is in the process of reorganizing his license plate collection after a fire last winter. He lost about a hundred to the blaze but is trying to replace them.

John Ward, a newspaper writer and photographer, lives not far from White but has been at the hobby much longer. He started as a teenager in Cumberland County, Illinois, “harvesting old specimens” from his grandfather’s sheds, he said.

He had amassed about 500 plates over the past five decades, seeking out low numbers and repeating digits, known as “stutterers.” A fire last winter destroyed about a fifth of his haul, but Hammer has assisted Ward in securing replacements.

Family road trips piqued Hammer’s interest in plates when he was a kid. He started slowly, squirreling away his parents’ discards and snagging a few others here and there. Little by little, an obsession took hold.

Almost 20 years ago, he posted his first listing on eBay. As sales picked up, it was clear the online auction house was gobbling into his profit. Five years later, he took a leap, quitting his job at a factory and launching his own website. Mastering the technology was “rough sledding,” he said.

But the internet has been a blessing, too. Once, you could only find plates in person, by scouring estate sales, antique shops or the junkyard. Luck was critical for buyers in search of something specific. Now, enthusiasts can easily hunt for wildlife depictions, ham-radio designations or honorary titles.

A brass Missouri license plate from the turn of the last century is the most expensive item at Shop License Plates. It is listed for $1,299.99.

Shop License Plates has sold to Anheuser-Busch for conference décor and Ralph Lauren for an advertising campaign. Actor Josh Hutcherson used a 1977 “Birthplace of Aviation” Ohio plate in a film role.

Hammer organizes his mammoth stockpile with his own version of a Dewey Decimal System: Every plate has its place. He can pull a specific request from his stacks with the precision of a librarian.

Still, he said, “the license plates seem to multiply.”

That’s good news for buyers like Jolinda Lampo of Oceanside, California. For 12 years, she has been building birdhouses and selling them on Etsy. She uses recycled lumber for the walls and tops them with a license plate roof.

Jolinda Lampo of California uses license plates for roofs on the birdhouses she makes. She has been selling them on Etsy for 12 years and often sources her plates from St. Louis-based Shop License Plates.

“It adds a little personalization,” Lampo said.

Scott McDonald of northern Indiana is an antique car guy. Every detail matters when he restores an old vehicle, so for his ’59 camper — carefully repainted in its original teal with a white chevron stripe — he wanted 1959 Hoosier State tags.

“I couldn’t find one anywhere,” said McDonald, a general contractor. Finally, he was pointed to Hammer’s site, where he bagged a $30 goldenrod beauty.

“It’s like brand-spanking new,” he said.

Every plate that comes into Hammer’s possession undergoes a careful scrubbing. Serious collectors debate the pros and cons of different cleaning agents — from Windex to WD-40 — but Hammer swears by soap and water, with a heavy dose of elbow grease.

Prices are determined by age, condition and rarity. Plates from California — with its 30.3 million registered vehicles — are easier to find; ones from Vermont, with about 600,000, are less so.

Quirks add value. Before the U.S. mandated a standard 12-by-6-inch shape in 1957, states like Tennessee mimicked their own jagged outlines. During World War II, metal rationing resulted in soybean-based car tags. Palindromes are big. And niche categories always sell: animal themes, first responders, sports teams.

Most of Hammer’s merchandise retails for less than $10, plus shipping. His most expensive item, a brass Missouri artifact from the turn of the last century, is listed at $1,300.

Some of his plates — the ones he displays in his upstairs study — are priceless. They represent trips or accomplishments or even loved ones. His parents’ “Hammer 9” hangs from a beam. He has the “TLH” that he registered with his first car, and another with his initials that he just chanced upon.

Most of Terry Hammer's plates at Shop License Plates are from the United States, but he does sell some from other countries, including these from Belize.

The hunt is endless, he said. He gets recommendations from customers, follows online auctions and travels to swap meets instead of taking vacations.

“I never have enough license plates,” Hammer said.

1903: The first year a state, Massachusetts, issued its own license plates. New York began requiring plates in 1901, but owners had to make their own.

1928: “Idaho potatoes” made their mark as the first state slogan to be printed on a license plate.

1957: New Hampshire became the first state to offer vanity license plates to anyone who wanted one.

2018: Missouri rolled out its bicentennial plates, with red and blue waves to represent the state flag and Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

200+: The number of specialty license plates offered in Missouri.

3,000: Active members of the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association, which includes collectors from 25 countries.

$34,000: Selling price at auction last summer of a 1904 Chicago license plate; a porcelain St. Louis plate from 1906 went for $8,500.

Sources: Automobile License Plate Collectors Association; Missouri Department of Revenue

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