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Minonk man's huge license plate collection

Friday, October 09, 2015 - Posted 2:16:17 PM
Eldon Folkerts of Minonk has one of the biggest license plate collections in Illinois. At the Filger Library cruise-in held 2 weeks ago, Folkerts displayed his collection of license plates on the side of his father's 1924 Ford Model T pickup truck. He has every license plate from the first year they were issued in 1910 until 1979 when the State of Illinois stopped issuing new plates and began issuing stickers instead.

Below are license plates from 1959 to 1979. All the license plates from 1941 up to 1979 have the same plate number - 262-600.






Above are license plates from 1910 when they were first issued up to 1959. The license plates from 1943 to 1948 were made out of soybeans to conserve metal for World War II. Eldon said often the soybean license plates would be eaten by hogs if the truck or car happened to be parked in or near a hog lot.


The 1912 license plate to the left has holes in it to provide ventilation for the radiator since the license plates back then were hung in front of the radiator.

The 1913 license plate had no background, just numbers like a stencil to allow air flow to the radiator.








This 1946 license plate was made out of soybeans that could be eaten by farm animals.










Below is Eldon Folkerts' Model T Ford truck his father bought in 1924.





To the left is a tail light on the Model T Ford truck shown above. There is a kerosene reservoir at the top of the tail light. To light up the tail light a match is put to the wick in the reservoir. It operates just like a kerosene lamp in that the brightness of the light is controlled by turning the wick up or down to give more flame.

To learn more about the history of Illinois license plates, click here.