When you buy a new car, especially back in the 80s, if you got a front plate mount, sometimes the dealer would put their dealership plate on the front of the car. Some came with rear plate frames, or paper plates, etc.
Back in the 80's, James Oldsmobile in North Charleston, SC, would put an aluminum plate in the front of cars that had plate holders. Case in point, my 1985 442 came with the obligatory front holder, but no plate like the 83/84 H/Os did. So after about a year of it sitting up front, I made my own with the dealer plate. I flipped it over, painted it black and placed a door 442 decal right in the center of it then mounted it. Much better. When I finally took the plate off to see if I could clean up the plate and reuse it a little while back, I was met with this:
Blah. This was after I had cleaned it up the best I could. Luckily no rock dents, but dang... It was silk screen on a medium gray brushed aluminum plate. Which also was kinda weird as the brush effects went vertical, not horizontal like most. I could clean it better, but there seems to be some sort of coating on the aluminum to keep it from corroding.
So, looking into my options, I wanted to find another plate and reproduce the look.
Little did I know that to get a plate reproduced with simple silkscreen for just a few plates wouldn't be terribly cost prohibitive- but it was the setup and graphic fees that were huge upfront, no matter if you're doing 1 or 500.
Option 2, I tagged an online place that claims to be able to make aluminum plates, but apparently it's not silkscreen. I suspect it's some sort of digital printing or sometimes called ink sublimation. They claim UV protection though.
I guess we'll see. I ordered up 3 plates. Cost me 38 bucks with my 10% first timer discount. It's called www.bestofsigns.com out of Greer, SC. Kinda not but sorta local to me. We'll see how that works out. I read mixed reviews, a lot of happy customers but some weren't so happy. For 38 bucks I'll take the chance. Here's a sample of the artwork I submitted for them. Closest brushed background I could find:
If I was smart I would have got the dealer to give me a couple more of those plates back then. I did get him to give me some trinkets though, which are in hot standby:
Back in the 80's, James Oldsmobile in North Charleston, SC, would put an aluminum plate in the front of cars that had plate holders. Case in point, my 1985 442 came with the obligatory front holder, but no plate like the 83/84 H/Os did. So after about a year of it sitting up front, I made my own with the dealer plate. I flipped it over, painted it black and placed a door 442 decal right in the center of it then mounted it. Much better. When I finally took the plate off to see if I could clean up the plate and reuse it a little while back, I was met with this:
Blah. This was after I had cleaned it up the best I could. Luckily no rock dents, but dang... It was silk screen on a medium gray brushed aluminum plate. Which also was kinda weird as the brush effects went vertical, not horizontal like most. I could clean it better, but there seems to be some sort of coating on the aluminum to keep it from corroding.
So, looking into my options, I wanted to find another plate and reproduce the look.
Little did I know that to get a plate reproduced with simple silkscreen for just a few plates wouldn't be terribly cost prohibitive- but it was the setup and graphic fees that were huge upfront, no matter if you're doing 1 or 500.
Option 2, I tagged an online place that claims to be able to make aluminum plates, but apparently it's not silkscreen. I suspect it's some sort of digital printing or sometimes called ink sublimation. They claim UV protection though.
I guess we'll see. I ordered up 3 plates. Cost me 38 bucks with my 10% first timer discount. It's called www.bestofsigns.com out of Greer, SC. Kinda not but sorta local to me. We'll see how that works out. I read mixed reviews, a lot of happy customers but some weren't so happy. For 38 bucks I'll take the chance. Here's a sample of the artwork I submitted for them. Closest brushed background I could find:
If I was smart I would have got the dealer to give me a couple more of those plates back then. I did get him to give me some trinkets though, which are in hot standby:
