Caveat emptor

There are several of these copies of real plates out there sold in Italy as gadgets to go with booklet-like magazines about different topics of US plates. Examples shown here are from the series about Indian tribal plates,.providing a very good overview about the different Indian tribes in the US.

Copies are near perfect and you won’t be able to tell the difference from the real thing until you hold them in your hands. They are embossed like the real thing, but are of considerably lighter weight and you won’t be able to feel the outline of stickers. Yes, and reflective colors are missing on the ones that normally come with them.

I wouldn’t call them fakes as they were primarily made to stir the interest in US culture and history, thus promoting the hobby of plate-collecting as a side-effect. Above all plates are usually standard passenger issues of little monetary value of the real things.

Most of the reproductions pictured on this page are still in their original shrinkwrap.

What worries most is the feasible quality of reproductions when it comes to top rarities with considerable financial investment needs for would-be buyers on ebay for example, when even experts can’t tell the difference between true and false by just looking at pictures.