MTFCA Forum

In 1914 & 1915 CA issued a tag that attached to the dash as a car registration with the cars license plate number. In 1916 through 1919 the tag attached to the license plates. Each year the tags were a different shape. I bought a set of original 1915 license plates and printed on metal facsimiles, then I set about to make the dash tag. An original dash tag was stamped. Laser etching nor router cutting looked correct but so far it is the best I have done. If you compare it to a real dash tag you can clearly see the difference, I copied a picture of what the dash tag for 1915 looked like, used Photoshop to insert my license plate number and made a vector file of it. A friend has a cnc hobby router and he cut this into 1/8" thick brass.

Wow That looks great!! Nice Job. I've been going to make some '12 California plates for my car someday. I have some pictures and correct size prints to go from.

Wow! Looks good enough to me. I have wished for years that someone would set up a simple way to make these to order. I have a set of '15 plates for my '15 (if I ever get it together?), and wished I could get the dash tag to match. All my years of playing with these things, I think I have only seen a couple pair of era plates with their matching dash tag. A decent repro would be great!

I have one of those California dash tags it is #10691 but does not have a year. Maybe 1914? I also have a 1015 some where around here

An 8 sided dash tag is 1915. 1914 dash tag was sort of "square" shaped. Later tags went on the license plates. The '15 tag shape was the easiest to make as it had straight sides.

If you have a tool shop around, they can laser etch a dash tag but you need a good vector file. I had a poor quality vector file and the laser etched tag came out poor but they only charged me $10 bucks to do it. Use Photoshop and put your license number on the dash tag and have it laser etched. My computer savvy friend with the hobby cnc machine made up the vector file and then then made first a plastic dash tag then cut it into brass. It is a very slow process but it came out nice. Don't ask me what a vector file is, I haven't a clue but his cnc machine and a laser etching machine uses them.

FYI the dash tags were nickel plated. They were issued (without license plates) and were always 2" round before 1914. I have the original matching tag for my 1914 plates.

What size is that thing? And what point sizes are the fonts? I can tell you why it didn't look right with any of the engraving machines....the fonts were hand laid, not computer generated. For them to look like the original, you'd have to do it exactly the way they did it...hand lay it.

If you want it to look like the original, send me a good clear photo of the original with dimensions and I'll lay out the fonts (by hand) digitally in any format you like.