Quietly, with little notice, Alaska's Gold Rush Centennial license plate has passed into history.
Late last year, the Division of Motor Vehicles stopped issuing the plate that recalls the prospector hordes who came for Alaska gold in the 1890s, a plate that began to appear on vehicles in 1998.
Any car, truck or RV still wearing the Gold Rush plate is good to go. But motorists getting new plates are out of luck, assuming they wanted the Gold Rush tags, by no means a universally popular design.
"I am bummed," Bobbi Williams, an Anchorage restaurant manager, said recently at the DMV office on Benson Boulevard when told the agency had gone back to the standard blue-on-yellow version with the state flag that Alaskans have known for more than 20 years.
Williams is not fond of that design, which is codified in law, down to its colors, flag and slogan, "The Last Frontier."
The Gold Rush plate, sunsetted by the same law, "is definitely the more modern-looking one," she said. "I've had people come up here to visit and they say, 'Oh, your plates are so ugly.' "
But are they? The Automobile License Plate Collectors Association doesn't think so. It loves Alaska tags. Many of the club's more than 3,000 members around the world voted the Gold Rush Centennial plate the best new issue of 1998, according to Eric Gustafson, coordinator of the association's annual best-plate competition.
Moreover, the new issue -- a fully embossed version of the former plate that's being called the "new old" plate -- is one of 10 finalists in this year's competition. Voting by club members ended Friday, and the winner is to be announced April 1.
"Although the basic design isn't new, the embossing is," the collectors association announced last month. "Not only are the numbers embossed, but the state name and slogan are as well. ALPCA members have praised the Alaska offering for bucking the trend of entirely flat plates that are becoming more prevalent."
"There's a lot of great plates coming out of Alaska," Gustafson said from his home in New Concord, Ohio.
The "bear plate," for example, a 1976-81 issue that included a standing grizzly, is "one people covet for their collection," he said. "It's a great graphic image."
Another hot Alaska plate is the Alaska Purchase Centennial, a 1967 design with the embossed image of a totem pole.
"That's my personal favorite, and it's popular with other collectors," said Dirk Starck, an air traffic controller from Eagle River who is an unofficial historian of Alaska plates.
The very first Alaska plate, the 1921 territorial original, is among the rarest plates sought by collectors, Starck said.
"It's considered one of the most valuable license plates in the United States, period," he said. "I've verified that two exist, and there are rumors of two others." The two he knows about have changed hands in the last few years.
The 1921 plate would likely fetch between $21,000 and $25,000, Starck said. A 1922 Alaska plate, on the other hand, should bring no more than $5,000.
Most vintage license plates from any state or Canadian province sell for no more than $100, Gustafson said.
A recent check on eBay, the online auction site, found most Alaska plates selling for less than $10. All were priced less than $35 except for two, a 1947 unissued "cardboard" (actually fiber board) plate selling for $749, and a 1946 plate going for $425.
Starck, who's 42 and kindled his passion for plates in 1973 during his family's move to Alaska up the Alaska Highway, said that of all Alaska plates, the red-on-white bear edition is a standout.
"Alaska is pretty good at being among the first to do things. The bear plate is one of the first to put an image like that on a plate," Starck said. "The bear is very Alaskan. ... Europeans are nuts for the Alaska bear plate."
Starck owns 300 different Alaska plates dating back to 1941. He favors tags like the totem pole and Gold Rush centennial editions that are "attractive and represent our history."
But the current design for the standard-issue plate, he said, is "kind of boring." Starck blames state law, which says the DMV cannot adopt a new or even altered registration plate unless it incorporates the same basic elements, including the flag.
Jim Veatch, an Anchorage firefighter, also laments the passing of the Gold Rush edition.
"I'm disappointed they're going by the wayside. I like a plate that's colorful and tells a story," he said at the DMV office on Benson Boulevard.
Chris Mandregan, on the other hand, is happy to see the Gold Rush plate retired.
"I want the flag," said Mandregan, a health systems administrator in Anchorage. The Gold Rush commemorative plate, he said, "looks like a trail of ants."
That the new old plate is entirely embossed heightens its appeal for Mandregan, as it does for collectors.
"It's unusual to go back to a fully embossed plate only because the state of the art of license-plate manufacturing is going in the exact opposite direction," to the computer-assisted creation of flat plates, said Michael Wiener, a former president of the collectors association and author of a book about plates for law-enforcement agencies.
According to Carl Springer, the DMV's motor vehicle registrar, the agency selected the all-embossed design because police and state troopers had warned that flat plates -- the design of some specialized Alaska tags issued by the DMV and of standard tags in some other states -- cannot be read when covered by mud.
"We were trying flat-plate design until we started getting complaints," Springer said.
The DMV, Springer said, issued 166,000 to 190,000 Gold Rush commemorative plates each year for seven years.
"People liked the design of it," he said. "When I first saw it, I thought it was a nice looking plate."
Some complaints have been heard about the latest change as drivers pick up their new plates at DMV offices, but not many, Springer said.
After all, he said, "We've gone back to a plate that's still on the road."
Daily News reporter Peter Porco can be reached at pporco@adn.com or 257-4582.
The site of the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles contains links to 15 types of special issue plates and to personalized plates.
Royce Williams, an Eagle River computer specialist who calls himself a taxonomist of plates, says his hobby of spotting plates is "like birdwatching, only with more car exhaust." Williams maintains a site devoted exclusively to Alaska plates, including data about the oldest plates, plate patterns and rules, collections, scores of photographs and other information.
The Automobile License Plate Collectors Association is the "pre-eminent organization" for collectors and the only one of any worldwide significance, according to Michael Wiener, a former ALPCA president. The club"s site offers news about regional meetings, license plate trivia, information about stolen plates and other materials.
Michael Wiener of Alburquerque, N.M., has advised police departments and state officials around the country, is a past president of the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association and was editor of the "The License Plate Book." His site offers information on collecting and state laws around the country, links to other sites and other data.
