In accordance with practices established after the province assumed responsibility for manufacturing license plates in 1913, the Superintendent of Provincial Police, Colin Campbell, issued a "Tender for Number Plates and Chauffeur's Badges" in June of 1917.

While the Tender was short on specifics, it is now known that the province would need approximately 15,000 pairs to start 1918 with subsequent orders pushing the total up to 20,500 pairs of automobile license plates by the end of the year, along with plates for dealers and motorcycles.

Bids were to be submitted to the Superintendent by the middle of July with the plate order to be completed by the winning firm within four (4) months in order to ensure the plates could be delivered to all of the Provincial Police's field offices and other issuing locations before the new vehicle registration year started on January 1st.

By December of 1918, it was being reported that the 1918 license plates had been completed by J.R. Tacey & Son of Vancouver and would be yellow-on-black "with a removable disc which will permit of the plate being used for three years." In recognition of some of the challenges associated with the tin used to manufacture plates between 1915-17, it was further reported that the plates were "being specifically made to stand more wear than those previously issued ..."

In 1917, J.R. Tacey & Son was one of approximately 32 sheet metal companies operating in Vancouver and Victoria, albeit one that specialized in the installation of ventilation systems.

The origins of the company date to around 1890 when John Reuben (J.R.) Tacey relocated west from Ontario and began listing himself as a "tinsmith" in various city directories until 1907 when he became a "Heating and Ventilating Engineer", and later renamed the company to "John R. Tacey & Son" in 1915 to account for the participation of his son, Frederick John Tacey, in the family business.

Considered to be "among the real pioneer firms of the city, especially in their chosen line of all branches of sheet metal work", J.R. Tacey & Son would provide ventilation for the Hudson's Bay building at Granville and Georgia Streets, the Marine Building, the Vancouver General Hospital, the United Distillery warehouse at Marpole.

What is also important to know about J.R. Tacey is that he was active in local Vancouver politics through the "Ward 2 Liberal Association", having let his name stand as a candidate in the 1906 civic election, being appointed by the provincial (Liberal) government to the liquor "License Board" for Vancouver in 1917, and later serving as an executive of the local Ward 2 Association in the early 1920s.

Equally important to know is that in September of 1916, the Liberal Party under Harlan Brewster defeated the Conservative Party of William Bowser in the provincial election, ushering in a 12 year period of uninterrupted Liberal governance.

While the election occurred too late in the year to influence the awarding of the 1917 license plate contract, the Brewster government would subsequently award the 1918 contract to Tacey despite his not having any expertise in this area, unlike the MacDonald Manufacturing Company with their history of printing advertising copy on tin products.

So, how does a company with no practical experience in the production of license plates win a contract and complete an order for 43,000 plates (20,500 pairs of car plates and a few thousand dealer and motorcycle) in less than 4 months?

According to Cecil Clark (1899-1993), it was by reaching out to a company in Washington State - thought to be the Pacific Coast Stamp Works of Seattle who had previously bid on the contract for making BC plates (e.g. 1915) - that was already making license plates for that state and striking a deal to buy some of their equipment at a cost of $7,000 and receive training in how to make plates.

Clark had been hired as a Junior Clerk with the (then) British Columbia Provincial Police force in 1916, before eventually rising to the position of Deputy Commissioner at the time of his retirement in 1959. Following his retirement, he would become the unofficial historian of the force following its absorption into the RCMP and would eventually write four books about the force. It would seem that, in his role of Junior Clerk, he assisted with the awarding of the license plate contract to Tacey in 1917.

Tacey's plan required the Americans to bring the equipment across the border to Vancouver and then stay for a few weeks to help with the set-up and training. However, in 1917 Canada was still involved in the Great War and the Americans, who happened to be of German ancestry, were deemed to be enemy aliens and were not allowed into the country with their plate making machinery.

Tacey was thus forced to set the machinery up at his shop on Seymour Street without any assistance and to then, through a process of trial-and-error figure how it worked.

It is this lineage that explains the striking similarities between the plate design and dies used by Washington State and those made for British Columbia by J.R. Tacey & Sons in this period:

Thanks to a profile of Tacey's new license plate production facility that was published by the Vancouver Sun in early 1918, we have a pretty good understanding of the machinery Tacey acquired from the Americans and how it worked.

The key to the whole production process was a "big embossing press" which was purportedly the only one "in Canada capable of almost instantly stamping a flat sheet of metal into a neatly embossed license plate with raised letter and numbers." Some highlights of the process include:

• a metal plate is fed into the embossing press, which exerted about 50 tons of pressure per square inch for a few seconds;

• the embossed plate is then placed under a pneumatic painter where black enamel was sprayed evenly over both sides of the plate under an air pressure of 110 pounds;

• this painting process ensured there would be no "brush marks" on the plate and further ensured that "the enamel [was] driven right into the surface of the metal";

• to make sure the enamel stayed on the plate, and also to improve its lustre the plate was hen baked in an "enamelling oven" at a high temperature for a couple of hours;

• to apply the yellow top coat, the plate is then fed through a separate enamelling machine equipped with rollers that applies the enamel "just like the inking apparatus on a printing press";

• this results in the yellow only touching the raised numbers, borders, and letters, leaving the rest of the plate in black, with the yellow standing out in sharp relief;

• the plate is then placed back in the "enamelling oven" for a period of time in order to set the yellow enamel; and

• the finished plates are then "placed in an oiled paper envelope ready for the motorist."

As a result of Tacey's investment in the Washington State license plate making equipment, British Columbia was, along with Alberta, the first jurisdiction in Canada to provide embossed license plates.

This earned Tacey the interest of the Prairie Provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) along with Ontario in having the firm produce their license plates in the embossed style.

While there is no hard evidence to support this assertion (yet), it is thought that Tacey did start providing license plates for Saskatchewan later in 1918 when the province ordered a block of over-run plates between 40,000 & 54,000:

An interesting side note to the potential expansion of Tacey's business into other provinces is the 1918 BC plate No. 24378 (pictured at left), which displays a number about 4,000 higher than the highest known issued plate and is missing some bolt holes and slots normally seen on a 1918 BC plate.

While the Tender released by the BC provincial government for the 1918 license plate contract had requested the submission of license plate "samples" by interested bidders, it is unlikely that Tacey would have been able to provide this as they had never produced license plates before.

What is more likely is that the No. 24378 is a specimen made by Tacey in 1918 as they pursued license plate contracts with other Canadian provinces. The No. 24378 allowed them to show other jurisdictions the quality of their product.

On December 29, 1918, motorists were reminded that 1919 license plates could be acquired from the provincial police and were to be affixed to the 1918 plates before the end of the registration year.

The announcement further advised that "the new license plates consist of merely a small disc of sufficient size to cover the year number on last year's plates.".

Despite being less costly to manufacture than the porcelain plates they had replaced, a significant drawback associated with the tin plates made by the MacDonald Manufacturing Company between 1915-17 was their durability.

The Washington State design, which incorporated a steel base solved the durability issue but not the cost issue, especially at a time when resources were still being prioritised for the war effort in Europe.  To solve this second challenge, Tacey incorporated a design element being explored by Washington State at the time; the use of renewable tabs or a small "removable disc" that could be placed on a permanent base.

California had pioneered the use of renewal tabs in 1916 when it introduced a license plate that was to be validated each year through the attachment of a new, small disc in the top left-hand corner of the plate:

It is interesting that local press account from the time indicate that Tacey was exploring the use of a "disc" to renew license plates in 1919 and 1920 as a stroll through the US Patent Database (thanks Google!) for "renewable license plate" inventions registered between 1910 to 1920 reveals a "disc" proposal illustrated on a Washington plate dated 1920.

A knock against the California model was that the tabs were not legible from more than a few feet, which aided the work of counterfeiters and other scofflaws trying to avoid registration fees!

Solving the challenge of finding a workable solution for the cost effective license plate renewals engaged the efforts of many inventors with decidedly mixed results as can be evidenced by the other patents taken out at this time:

The local press described Tacey's innovations and future plans for BC license plates as follows:

In order to save metal in the future and reduce the work of changing auto license plates each year to a minimum, a scheme has been perfected by J.R. Tacey & Son to allow for the present license plate to remain on the machine indefinitely and for next year a small plate to be affixed to cover the "B.C., 1918" monogram on the left side of the plate. This affixed plate will be in a different color for each year. The color for 1919 has already been decided as green.

The license plates next year [1919] will then afford a unique color combination of orange and green - for most of the yellow figures will have slightly changed their shade by that time. For 1920 the green plate will be discarded for one of red, bearing the same monogram, with the figures 1920. This simple scheme, for which a patent has already been applied for and assurances given that it will be granted, will save tons and tons of metal in new plates each year, besides the trouble of changing the main plate. The smaller plates can be made much faster, too, it being straight ahead stamping, while in the other case the individual dies must be changed every two impressions.

Measuring approximately 3.5 inches by 4.3 inches in size, the tabs came stamped with wings designed to fit into pre-cut slots on the 1918 base that could be bent backwards to keep them in-place on the plate.

The design further allowed for the 1918 date to be entirely covered while the size and green colouring made it somewhat easier to identify vehicles that were paid up and properly registered with the province.

While likely designed to be convenient and easy to attached to the 1918 base plate, the folding wings were easy to un-fold and remove from a plate by scofflaws seeking to avoid paying registration fees and ultimately lead to their abandonment after one year's use.

One of the great aspects of the 1919 renewal tab is reading the old newspaper stories where motorists get themselves into trouble trying to figure out the new registration system.

Take the case of a Vancouver motorist who was charged for driving his truck without proper 1919 plates attached. In his defence, he argued that he had the properly issued 1919 tabs affixed to the front and rear of his truck but that one of the "plates to which the 1919 attachment had been fastened was a home-made affair with a canvas back and aluminum figures."

The Chief Constable for the City argued that the motorist was legally required to display a complete license plate issued by the Provincial Police - being the base plate as well as the 1919 renewal tab - and that if one of the base plates was lost he needed to apply for a new set.

In response, the motorist pointed out that the Provincial Police were not issuing new base plates for old cars in 1919 and that his truck carried what had been issued, which was the renewal tabs.

Before adjoining to consider the matter for a week, the Magistrate announced that "if the Provincial Police do not issue a complete number plate, but only a 1919 attachment, it seems to me they are putting people in [the] wrong, and making it difficult for the municipal police to enforce the law." Further, "I do not wish to penalize you if the Provincial Police are not issuing complete plates for old cars this year ..."

It is not known what the final decision of the Magistrate was in this matter.

One of the challenges in moving to a renewable license plate was determining how many "new" plates would be needed over the course of the second year - being 1919 - for new cars coming into the province needing to be registered for the first time in BC or previously registered cars that had been left off the roads in 1918.

Based on available Provincial Police records, it is known that the last new registration issued in 1918 occurred on December 30th and involved the No. 16-341. If current guesstimates are correct, this left approximately 4,159 unused 1918 plates that could continue to be issued into 1919 (e.g. to plate No. 20500).

As the Provincial Police tracked vehicle registration trends, they knew that numbers had been increasing significantly since 1914:

If the trend line for new vehicles registered in 1919 remained the same as the previous two years (e.g. 32-34% increase), approximately 5,000 plates would be needed.  As the Provincial Police already had around 4,000 plates (to No. 20-500) left over from the last order filled by Tacey & Son in 1918, an additional 1,000 plates (to No. 21-500) should have all that was needed to meet demand for 1919.

This is borne out in the historical record as plates numbered between 20-500 and 21-500 have been produced without the 1918 date and square frame stamped into the base - which suggests they were made in 1919:

As it happens, the Provincial Police misjudged the number of vehicle registrations that would occur in 1919 and by early November of that year they had issued all 21,500 of their available bases.

This was attributed to the number of new cars coming into the province from the summer onwards being double the rate that had been anticipated by the Provincial Police.

To deal with the issue, the province made the decision to order 500 cardboard plates that would be numbered from 21-501 to 22-000 and produced under contract by a printer in the Marpole neighbourhood of Vancouver.

It is assumed that this decision was influenced by the availability and cost of materials following the end of the Great War the previous year and a desire not to spend un-necessarily on license plates that would be retired in less than 2 months time (as new base plates had been made for 1920).  Otherwise, it is hard to understand such a decision given the likely deleterious impacts of the wet winter weather conditions on the visibility and integrity of the plates in coastal rain forest locations such as Vancouver and Victoria.

Although it had been reported that the 1918 license plates would be used for a period of three years through the use of a green renewal tab in 1919 and a red tab in 1920 (see above), a new base plate was made for 1920 with many of the same features as the 1918 base with the exception of the pre-punched slots for the renewal tab.

These were replaced on the 1920 base with 4 holes to be used to rivet in-place the planned renewal tabs to be issued in 1921 and 1922 that would use the same colours as had originally been planned for the 1919 and 1920 tabs (e.g. green and red).

It is assumed that this was deemed to be an important security improvement warranting the retirement of the 1918 base a year early. The folding wings used to affix the 1919 tabs to the 1918 base had proven easy to remove by thief's and other assorted scofflaws and the new riveted tabs were designed to combat this.

Upon completing the 1920 license plate contract, Tacey announced that his "shop quarters" on Seymour Street were too small to accommodate his expanding business and announced his intention to relocate to 550 6th Avenue West in July of that year.

The cost of the factory, which was to house Tacey's sheet metal works and a garage, was estimated at $6,000 and the plans, prepared by Twizell, Birds and Twizell, called for a 50 x 80 foot structure made "of concrete, hollow tile and mill construction". Two additional building permits for work on the building were taken out in 1920 and 1921.

The larger work space, which was completed by the end of September of 1920, would allow Tacey to install new plate making machinery such as "an electric oven for enamelling the embossed license plates" that would have a capacity of 200 cubic feet and "be the largest of its kind in Canada."

According to an article in the local press in 1920, it was reported that:

Tacey & Son, who are the only firm in Canada manufacturing embossed auto plates, have been turning out all the auto license plates for British Columbia since 1917. Some of the prairie provinces are now taking advantage of the facilities of this local plant to patronize Canadian industry, but the other provinces in the Dominion have so far had to import their auto license plates from the American side..

Tacey would win the contract for the 1920 license plate series and included a feature, reputed to be a "patented device" that would allow for the renewal of the plates by a tab in 1921 and 1922. (NOTE: the Canadian Patents Database shows the only patent registered to John Reuben Tacey being a "sun and rain visor for windshields of automobiles in 1923)

Due to Tacey's Patent, no tenders were posted in 1921 or 1922 as no other manufacturer of plates was purportedly entitled to use his 1920 base plates, while "34,500 pairs of motor number plate markers" would be purchased from Tacey & Son in 1922 at a cost of $8,500.00.

Despite being in charge of the company responsible for making license plates for the province and his apparent political connections, J.R. Tacey does not appear to have been overly superstitious, a numerologist or generally interested in what specific numbers adorned his vehicles.

This is evidenced by the announcement of numbers issued for the week of June 23, 1920, which indicates that his Ford touring car was issued the very common number of 27-532.

The renewal tabs produced by Tacey for 1921 displayed the red that had originally been announced for 1920 before the decision was made to produce a whole new base plate for 1920.

The colour of the tabs were described in one press account as "brilliant red with the B.C. Coat of Arms [sic] and 1921 in aluminium paint, the number of the license is also carried in miniature, to aid issuance:

A challenge with the renewal tab system was that car owners were "to have their old numbers, under this system, [and this] caused immense work in sorting the correct numbers for shipment to the various districts in B.C., and often it was found that several of the cars had been removed to another part of the province and their numbers had to be despatched again."

 A case in point being that of Angus Shaw of Victoria:

"Call and get your license early" was the urgent request of the Provincial Police, however, had a new base plate been issued for 1921 instead of tabs, a lot of this work could have been avoided, save for those motorists with "reserved" numbers, which were generally between 1-8,000.

Another challenge associated with the renewal tabs apart from outright theft, was their favour amongst "Rum Runners" transporting liquor illegally into the United States.

It was much easier to forge a small tag instead of a full sized plate when undertaking illicit activities.

While we here at BCpl8s.ca have never seen one of these counterfeit blue renewal tabs used in the early 1920s, we would certainly be interested in a photo if anyone has something fitting this description in their collection.

There are numerous examples of people who, when states and provinces first started requiring license plates collected every single one issued to them over the decades. More difficult is identifying the person who took that next big step and started collecting plates that were never issued to them and from other states and provinces in North America.

A great story in the April 2017 issue of "Plates" (the bi-month magazine of ALCPA) attempted to answer this, or at least set a base line for who might be the "first" license plate collector; Charles Benedict Brooks of Pearl Creek, NY, who appears to have started collecting in 1916 by writing to various motor vehicle departments requesting plates.

It would not be until late 1922 that Charles would being to write to various Canadian provinces seeking plates for his collection. In response to his query, the BC provincial police would send him an example of a 1922 (i.e. 1920 base with matching 1922 tab) - the No. 25170.

When Brooks' collection was auctioned in 2015, the BC went for the fifth highest price.

As states and provinces built out and connected their highway systems and cars could more easily travel between jurisdictions and be used to make trips consisting of hundreds or even thousands of kilometres, the need for license plates to be easily identifiable in other areas became more pressing.

For this reason, the Vancouver Automobile Club began to lobby the provincial government in 1922 to replace the "BC" acronym that had been in use informally since 1904 and formally since 1913 with the words "British Columbia" on the 1923 license plates.

This request was not granted in time for the 1923 plates, but a temporary compromise appears to have been settled as the intricate and intertwined BC design used since 1918 was untangled and replaced with a simpler, more easily readable version.

"BRITISH COLUMBIA" would appear the following year (1924) and, to read more about this, see the next section on the 1924-1929 plates.

It had been reported as early as January of 1922 that the province would be issuing a new license plate in 1923 as opposed to the renewal tabs that had been issued in 1921 & 1922.

It is likely this was attributable to the extra work that issuing tabs that had to match the base plates had caused the Provincial Police and a desire to reduce this burden.

Starting in 1923, motorists would no longer receive the same number they had the previous year - with the exception of the "reserved list" - and, instead, would be handed the next number in the rotation.  

As it was described in the local press:

a block of numbers will be issued from Victoria to each registration office, and in turn will be issued from there to the applicants as they arrive, regardless of the number formerly assigned. Thus, if a city gets a block of numbers from 15,000 to 20,000, the first applicant will be handed license plate No. 15,000, and so on. The new system will eliminate much trouble and confusion attendant on the present system, and will make it easier to trace the names of registered owners when occasion arises.

This change can be seen in the Registers maintained by the Provincial Police and how numbers had been recorded between 1904-1922 versus 1923:

It was reported that New Westminster received 2.5 tons of 1923 license plates on November 28, 1922, in the form of 4,000 license plates numbered between 15-501 and 19-500, each weighing 20 ounce each for a total of 5,000 pounds. Issuance was scheduled for the last week of December 1922.

In Vancouver, plates numbered 19-501 to 35-000 were received and motorists were advised that, first time in two years, they would not be receiving the same license plate number as they had the previous year when "small metal squares" had been issued.

1923 would also mark the start of mild political jousting in the Legislature over the awarding of the annual license plate contract to J.R. Tacey & Son.

Robert Pooley, Conservative Member for Esquimalt and a future Attorney General criticized Alexander Manson, Liberal Member for Omineca and Attorney General for awarding the contract to a firm that was not the lowest.

Attorney General Manson subsequently advised that the lower tenders had been received from companies based outside of the province - and the government's notices tended to state that "plates manufactured in British Columbia will be given preference" - and that bids for the license plate contract had been received from the following:

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