HELENA – Montana is redesigning its basic license plate design for the first time in five years and is looking at a retro-inspired design that harkens back to the plates of the 1970s and earlier.

In other states, license plate codes are issued based on where the owner lives. Montana is one of a handful of states that uses county codes on their standard plates.

The bison skull still is on the plate, separating the county number from the plate number. Montana has a wide assortment of colorful specialty plates: 105, plus special college and university plates.

Some of the specialty license plates available are hung in the Yellowstone County Courthouse. Montana currently offers 266 specialized plate designs, but a new law taking effect in 2020 could ...

HELENA – Montana has become the latest state to stop making license plates because of disruption in the U.S. aluminum supply – another example of supply chain problems caused by the pandemic.

HELENA — The blue sky is there and so are mountains and prairie, the buffalo skull and the nickname of "Big Sky Country." The word Montana is blazoned across the topic in gold old west lettering ...

HELENA, Mont. — A disruption in the aluminum supply has put a temporary stop to traditional license plate manufacturing in Montana. About 750,000 license plates are made each year at the Montana ...

In Illinois, for example, new plates have been following a AA 11111 pattern since 2017. If you see an Illinois plate with an AA1 2222 series, it’s safe to say that plate is older than 2017.