Eagle County Current Series: DOX/DOY/DOZ, CYF/CYG, or DFQ <--- This is around the number you'd receive at the Eagle County DMV
Gunnison County High: DFN-D35 <---- This is the number Gunnison's DMV is issuing, give or take 5 digits.
Colorado High: EJR-*** <--- This is around the number you'd receive if you ordered a specialty plate
DFQ-H00 -> DFQ-O99? current
CYF-A50 -> CYG-E99 current
CRP-V00 -> CRP-Y92
CUF-P51 -> CUG-J32
DOW-Z50 -> DPA-B49 current
CMV-X00 -> CMW-F50
CLX-B00 -> CLX-F50
DDB-A00 -> DDB-I99
AUH-M66 -> AUF-D "Golden Series"
ARV-M63 -> ARX-E "ARVers"
BZC-J01 -> BZG-E69
AMS-C66 -> AMT-N77 "Amsterdams"
BGH-J29 -> BGH-S73
DPB-434 -> DPD-506, skip E-J, DPK -> DPN-703
ACQ-E01 -> ACR-F03
CXG -> CXP-777
CAZ-360 -> CBB-938
BTC- -> BTI-475
BNH- -> BNI-
OWK-408 -> OWP
OGB-050 -> OGB-250
FXO-314 -> GDO-006
XQZ- -> YQB-
QUP --> QUR
WFQ/WGQ-
MQH/MQI-
BQB-
NBQ- -> NFQ-788
-RQY
-JQA -> -JQC
-JPQ
-PJQ
-QMZ -> QNB
-BQP -> -BQR
-ZQE
-VWQ -> -VXQ
-ZNZ -> ZMA
-ZFT -> -ZFS
-ZAJ
-YTA/B
-YLM2
-YJP
-XPT -> -XPY
-XXF
-XKS
-WFE -> WFG
-VEJ -> -VEL
-UBH -> -UBJ
-UMW -> -UNA
-TNX
-TFA
-SZR
-RWL -> -RWT
-RNN/RNM
-PVX
-PII/PIJ
-NBZ
-NRG/H
-LWX
-KXG -> -KXK
-KIU
-KMA/B
-JUI -> JUS
-HEY/Z
-HOL -> HOS
-FRT -> -FRZ
-EEO -> EER
-DVX/Y
-CMW -> CNC
-BVM/N
-AJR
386-ADF -> 380-ADH courtesy of Bennett Sizer
The drop-down menu above is a list of every plate issued in Eagle County. Well, like, 99%. Tiny allotments often sneak through, and it is very likely that a few of these allotments were issued when I couldn't walk, and therefore I have no idea what they are.
You will notice some series have nicknames; I use these nicknames often on this site, so I figured I'd add them.
Some of the older allotments are seen so seldomly I had to just throw in one of the plates I saw and call it a day. For example, I've only seen a few -RWS plates, but nothing in the neighborhood (like RWT). The allotment list is a living document, and I will update it as I see more plates on the road (or get sent old plates numbers by you guys!) For more info on how I found this, and what the heck you're looking at, see the County System tab. At the bottom, you can also find image sets with several plates from allotments I've seen - this will take a while to populate, since I don't have too many pics yet.
Allotments that are bolded have non-pass types in the series, such as motorcycle, trailer, GVT, etc.
Oh, and I don't work at the DMV. I get asked that a lot.
August 27, 2024
After DFQ-J50, Avon went on to DFQ-N50. I think it's safe to say this is a small allotment as the spread after 6 boxes is very low. Also safe to say that Avon must only have a few more boxes of this series, as around 10 boxes remain, which should be distributed between the Eagle and El Jebel offices at some point... They are yet to issue any DFQs for some reason.
This reminds me of the DDB series, which was quite small as well. The allotments were so small across the board that basically every county got a DDx series. The same appears to be happening with DFs. I'd like to put together a nice list at some point. Another DF allotments that popped up recently was DFL-N88 to DFL-N99 Hinsdale. Even the tiny counties are getting their own tiny allotments. 11 plates.
August 26, 2024
Eagle is on the DOX-K50 box. Avon finished issuing DFQ-J00 and moved right on to DFQ-J50. El Jebel is around CYF-W75. It is interesting to see how Avon latched on to the DFQ boxes, issuing 5 in a row, but the other offices don't seem to have any. The county has 2000 plates of DOW-DPA left and 600 CYF/G left. Not sure on DFQ because I don't know the ends of it yet.
August 22, 2024
Avon moved on to DFQ-J00. El Jebel is on CYF-W55. Not quite sure about Eagle. DFQ is shaping up to be relatively small, hopefully, as Avon has gone through 4 boxes already and they're all in the DFQ-H to DFQ-O range. Typically (with the random issuance they do) by the time they've issued multiple boxes, it's much more spread out. Time will tell just how small it is.
August 21, 2024
Avon has gone on and issued DFQ-H00 and DFQ-H50. No DFQs from Eagle or El Jebel. These were distributed to counties randomly, many of which have begun issuing their respective allotments: DFN in Gunnison, DFS in Montrose, and DFV in Summit.
August 13, 2024
I was driving home from work today and saw a plate at a red light that looked like it was issued 4 seconds ago. The serial was DFQ-O66. I thought it was pretty interesting, and that it might line up to be an Eagle, so I did some research to see if it was issued here. Nothing came up since it was so new, so I resorted to just waiting outside the outside to figure out what was current. Sure enough, DFQ-O74 came out. So I got DFQ-O75. I have missed out on too many small allotments in my time (DDB, CMW, CLX, CRP...), so I decided that I'd get a new plate from this series juuust in case it happened to be a really small one. There are still plenty of CYF/CYG and DOX-DOZ plates to be issued, so now the county is issuing 3 different allotments.
July 31, 2024
The county has 2400 DOX-DOZ plates left to issue and 800 CYF/CYG plates to issue. I expect CYs to end by September, maaybe October. I have no idea when DOs are going to end since they've been issuing them for hilariously long now - 14 months and counting. What's next? Who knows!
June 28, 2024
El Jebel just ended their CYF-B50 box, but I'm not sure what they moved on to yet. Eagle finished DOZ-F50 box and moved onto DOX-U00. Avon finished CYF-Q00 box
June 20, 2024
Avon opened the CYF-Q00 box on Tuesday and has gotten through it pretty well. Not sure what's going on in Eagle. El Jebel should still be on the CYF-B50 box, maybe in the second half of it.
June 19, 2024
I went to the Eagle office yesterday and got DOZ-F88, just about what I predicted. Looks like they're about to finish that box early tomorrow (today was apparently a national holiday). Very few boxes of DOZ are left and the county mostly has DOYs to issue with a few DOXs. It appears that most DO* plates will come out of Eagle for now as they have issued less of them, but this may be due to a difference in office share, as the upvalley office may serve a larger population.
June 17, 2024
On Friday, June 14, I received CYF-U49 from the Eagle office and CYF-Y47 from the El Jebel office. The Avon office was issuing CYF-Ps. Now, Avon is issuing CYF-C90ish, Eagle is issuing DOZ-F80ish, and El Jebel is around CYF-B60. The county has about an equal number of CYF and DO* plates to go through. DPA is done and CYG only has 2 boxes (100 plates) left to issue. Maybe 1. CYG is a small series, with only around 500 plates. CYF is full starting from A.
June 11, 2024
I haven't seen many 6 stickers yet, but the few I have were DO plates, with no CY stuff, so I will assume that we finished the CY and are now finishing off the last of the DO plates. Then we should get a new allotment. The recent POD block from EEHish to EGL has finished and the state has moved on to EIO. I am really hoping they end up issuing EMx/ENx plates in POD, since that would match Eagle County's plates from the 80s and 90s.
June 4, 2024
It has been a while! I've been back from college for a bit now and have finally put things together. Eagle finished issuing the CUF/CUG series. In Jan/Feb they issued a very small block of CRPs ranging from CRP-V to CRP-Z (yeah...). They then moved on to issuing CYF/CYG plates, which appear to just about have wrapped up now. All while issuing DOX/DOY/DOZ and a handful DPA plates. DOx plates were out of order, CUx plates were out of order, and I'm not sure about the other ones but I doubt they were in order. I fully consider out of order issuance as the new standard for Eagle County. I am trying to pay attention to other counties to see if they are out of order as well. I expect Eagle County to begin issuing some sort of new series soon. COF-B43 TRL was issued today, but I doubt it will spell a future pass series. Many trailer plates come from blocks exclusive to Trailers that do not contain passenger or other types of plates. In other news, the DLF series I was cranking out on motorcycles last summer has extended to handicap, livery, and fleet plates. I believe DLF-F FLT plates are current. DOW has popped up on Livery, FLT, TRL, and GVT. I suspect DOW-U are currently being issued from GVTs. I see them creeping up on the road. E plates are becoming more and more common on the road, but only as print on demand types. I have seen one EED in Arapahoe County which would be issued by a county, but Eagle haven't issued any of their E plates yet (if they've even gotten any). I have no idea as to what Eagle will issue next. Time will tell, but it shouldn't be long before it does.
December 14, 2023
I'm finally back from college for winter break, so I can make some updates again. DOX, DOY, and DOZ were all issued in the past few months, and it seemed they issued about half of them. Recently it seems the office has been switching between that series and CUF/G, which seems like it'll be a pretty small one. Today, I got CUF-R17 from the Avon office. They were issuing CUG-H just before that. They'll probably stop this and go back to the DOs sometime soon. Somehow, the state hasn't issued E plates yet, since they just keep chugging along with their late POD block. It's now the biggest in history, running from DVB to DZK and counting. It'll come soon. I would guess they don't have any more A or B plates in stock, and that CU is the last or second last allotment of their C-series.
July 24, 2023
So, it's been a while. I've spent most of the month out of the state, so I haven't really been actively keeping track. Here's what I do know: the CMW and CLX series were finished, and now the state is onto an important series: DOZ. I say it's important because it has non-pass equivalents; DOW-Z was seen as a Livery plate on a local car. It appears early DOZs have been issued, as well as DOZ-T for some reason.
This should be a large allotment considering how big the gap between the Livery and passenger series are. For example, the important BZ series had pass starting at BZC-J, while Livery was BZB-H.
I think that issuing DOZ is a bit weird at the moment, since the office likely has a number of B and C series plates still waiting to be issued in boxes. However, I've learned recently that this isn't up to the clerks working, but rather the computer, which assigns "Group IDs" to each box, which appear to have been out of order recently, explaining the chaos that happened between AUF-AUH. I think these weird out-of-order things are mostly the norm now, so it is what it is.
August 12, 2023
Info is getting a bit thin as I focus on packing for college. However, I noticed yesterday that there was a DLF handicap plate - confirming that we will get DLF passenger plates eventually. They'll be very uncommon, about the same size as our DDB plates.
The county continues to throw out DOZ plates. They're not in order, so I haven't bothered tracking a high for them. I've seen some DOY-Y and DPAs as well. Oddly enough, pretty much the whole state is issuing these DN-DR series plates. Summit has DRE, Garfo has DPW, Hinsdale has DQE... it goes on. DOFs are showing up on rental cars too, probably Arapahoes or Denvers.
June 12, 2023
The El Jebel office often issues plates a bit different than Avon and Eagle, and today really proved that. I went in to get a motorcycle plate, and it was from the old format. DNK-448. This plate should've been issued, like, 5 years ago. Nevertheless, I'm certainly gonna keep it. The clerk told me they have a few more boxes of that old format for motorcycle plates, but they did issue some current formats as well. I'm just impressed by this, since the last time Eagle County issued this format was DPN- back in 2020.
The county appears to have stuck to issuing CLX plates. Some CLW-Y and Z plates are showing up now too. I generally haven't been keeping good track of these, they're quite messy.
June 5, 2023
Absolutely bewildering news from the Eagle office: they don't have motorcycle plates in stock. How??? I've never heard of such a thing. That meant that if I wanted to get a new plate today, I had to go back to the Avon office, the same place I went literally last time they were open to get a motorycle plate. So, in conclusion, the Avon office is issuing DLF-C40 now instead of DLF-C37. Wow. I'm really surprised about the Eagle office not having motorcycle plates though. People are just getting temp tags and receiving POD plates rather than county-coded allotments. Super interesting.
June 3, 2023
The county has been pretty indecisive about which series to issue. It appeared they chose CMW, but I've seen two new plates stickered June: CLX-H and CLX-I. So I guess that's what's current. I'm not always going to be sure what's latest, so I'm gonna keep track of both highs at the top of the page.
June 2, 2023
It turns out I was plain wrong about the CRX-CRY allotment. It looks like Douglas County got all of those. Oddly enough, we still got CRY-Q for motorcycles, albeit very, very few (maybe 20 or so?). I also saw a motorcycle plate that was DDB-K40, which is super surprising to me. That means our tiny DDB allotment also made its way to not just trailer and handicap plates, but also motorcycle plates. Typically these non-pass types find their way on bigger allotments, so it's really surprising to see it on such a tiny allotment.
My motorcycle plate craze continues. The Avon office gave me DLF-C32 a week ago today, and today I got C37. Looks like they're issuing about one every day they're open. Assuming congruence among the three offices, that makes 15 plates a week, or 60 plates a month. By that metric, DLF plates should last the whole summer, and maybe beyond. Once September or so comes around, motorcycle plate issuance will come to a halt for the winter.
May 26, 2023
A small correction on a past blog post about future allotments: our Depressed Honda Fanboy allotment (CRX and CRY) will be shorter than anticipated, going from CRX-L to CRY-Q. I saw a CRX on the road, but it was before L; looks like Douglas County has issued their fair share of them. A lot of them ended up on rental cars. interestingly enough. Also, the ridiculously tiny CLX-B actually was 50 plates long rather than 25.
Great progress on the CMW series - CMW-B and CMW-Cs are showing up, confirming that these are finally being issued correctly. Today, I registered a motorcycle in my name, and to celebrate, I immediately got a replacement plate at the other office. This yielded interesting results between the two offices: Avon issued me DLF-C32, while Eagle issued me DLF-E77. I'm gonna assume those are the ends of our cycle allotment (they tend to be around 2-3 hundred plates long), so it's quite curious how big of a difference there is between them. I'm going to order several replacement plates from the office over the coming months, and I especially hope to get one from the El Jebel office.
May 23, 2023
A new high spotted today: CMW-E86. It does actually seem like they're issuing them in order! Great news. I believe this was issued downvalley, since my father got CMW-A57 yesterday at the upvalley office. Which is a great sign, since it shows they're issuing the second half of As right after the first half; meaning it's in order, unlike the AUs. Thank god. This blog will have a lot more meaning with actually sequential progression. I saw a CMV-X , For my own sanity, I'll assume that came from the office in El Jebel.
Furthermore, I've seen another series with Eagle County stickers: CLX-B, less than like 20. This might've been the smallest series in the history of Colorado license plates, or just a random preview of what's next. It's a bit too close alphabetically to CMW, though. No idea what the hell is going on with that.
Motorcycle and trailer plates have given glimpses into allotments of the future: DLF and BNT. BNT-A trailer was issued today, and DLF motorcycle around a month ago. I believe DLF motorcycles are still currently issued.
May 19th, 2023
A very low CMW-D was the first I saw from the series, but it appears CMW-A is out and about as well. Huge guess, but it seems CMW-D is what the downvalley office started, and CMW-A is what the upvalley office started. I'll continue to mark CMW-D as the high, since I'm assuming (and really hoping) that this series will go back to normal sequentialness.
May 16th, 2023
A new series has finally started! To put it into perspective, the AU series lasted almost my entire senior year (assuming it's over...)
What is this series, you may ask? CMW. I'm praying this series will be issued sequentially as previous ones have been, since that's a lot more fun to track than the absolute mess AU was. Assuming it wlil be sequential, the Eagle County high found at the top of the webpage should be a much more useful thing now. The final AU plates that were issued before CMW were AUG-G; just about the of AUF-AUH. I have no idea how far CMW will go, since no other county has issued plates around that; however, it's likely going to be pretty small. It's smushed too close to the POD block starting at CND. However, we'll see. It's a really interesting allotment, as we actually had plates ending in CMW issued all the way back in 2000 (see my allotment list). It also marks the first "C" plate the county has issued in the new format; notable because my old Golf had a POD C plate over two years ago. I also expect the D POD series to end soon - they've been blasting through it now that the blackout plates are out. E plates should be here before the sesquicentennial plates arrive in August.
May 9th, 2023
The only plate I've seen so far with 5 stickers was a low ARX-E. I have seen very few AU and DD plates being issued, and some new series have been popping up recently. I'm not sure if these are county issued, but it's possible, so I'm keeping an eye out for them.
Today, however, I bring a story not related to Eagle County. I discovered a plate unknown to collectors until now through the use of digital archives. For two years, Colorado issued special plates to those weird three-wheeled motorcycle things. They were standard looking but said "auto cycle" at the top. Guess how many were issued? 4. Nobody has ever seen one of these plates, and I'm super curious as to if any collector will ever have one on their hands. It's likely none of them exist anymore, being turned in to the DMV and subsequently destroyed or something. Nevertheless, I will always be searching for one of these plates from now on!
April 30th, 2023
ARW-Ws were completed, and as any reasonable plate series should be, it went on to ARX-A, B, C, and E. D appears to have been issued in January at the downvalley office for some reason. This should be just about it for the AR plates, since the second half of ARX-F went to another county. There are still some AU plates though, so I expect those will be handled accordingly here soon and a new series will finally show up. Random note but on my drive to Aspen yesterday, I noticed ARV-Z was given to the El Jebel office.
Furthermore, DDBs should be over now. I saw DDB-I98 yesterday, and a good chunk of the Js were given to non-pass types (trailers, governments, etc.) I see them around often now, but I expect these to be all but gone from the roads in 5 or so years. It's such a small allotment that very few will remain. That said, I'll likely find trouble trying to get one for my collection - hopefully I get my hands on one relatively soon.
April 20th, 2023
The last ARWs are now being issued. Very low ARW-Ws are what were going on today at the upvalley office. AU plates aren't over yet though. Not sure why they keep flipping back and forth between series, but c'est la vie.
April 19th, 2023
AUG-Js are current issues. I saw something super interesting, a DDB-J88 trailer. This means that the DDB series is just about over, since trailers typically come at the end of series. That makes DDB pretty much our smallest series ever, at around 900 plates.
April 17th, 2023
Looks like the downvalley office was issuing DDB-Hs last week, 50 and up. 49 and below were issued in January. DDB-Is are yet to hit the road. It still appears that most DDB plates were issued downvalley while the upvalley office continues to issue AUs. Curious. Furthermore, AUF-Gs are now being issued.
April 15th, 2023
In March, I went ahead and researched which subseries in AU weren't issued yet. I've gone ahead and done the same thing now, with a bit more accuracy. Still waiting to be issued are the second half of AUF-F, all of AUF-G, the first 3/4 of AUF-L, all of AUF-O, second 1/2 of AUF-S, some random AUF-Zs, most of AUG-C, the first 1/2 of AUG-G and J, the second half of AUG-M and Q, all of AUG-S, and the second half of AUH-L. I promise you that this AU thing is way more complicated than typical series, which issue ARV-M, then ARV-N, then ARV-O, etc. The good news is that the AU series is almost over. Those series add up to 850 plates.
Comparing this to my previous list on March 2nd, 2023, since then we've issued AUF-P, Q, R, and X, as well as the first half of AUG-Q, and AUH-A and K. Those plates add up to 650, so assuming we continue the same rate of plating cars, we can expect that AU plates will be over at the beginning of June.
Again, this is pretty speculative, but the remaining plates that'll be issued from now until June should be a good mix of AUF and AUGs. The county stuck to AUF pretty strongly in the last four months, so it's nice to see a bit of AUGs waiting to come through. It almost seems like they started issuing them alphabetically like a normal series.
April 14th, 2023
Low AUF-Ns are starting to show up. This morning, I saw a brand new plate - BXO-V54, though it appears it was issued to some county in Denver, likely Arapahoe or Adams. It's about time we get a new series. Also, again using the power of motorcycle plates, I found another one of our future allotments: CJD/CJE, maybe CJF. It'll be relatively large, since it's important enough to get cycle and trailer plates, and maybe some other types that haven't been issued yet. I'm glad that motorcycle season is starting, not only because I have one myself, but also because cycle plates are getting back on the road, and they have a lot to tell. Our future allotments now line up to be CRX, CRY, CJD, and CJE.
On another note, I've been studying B plates very closely. Based on what's been seen in other counties, as well as seeing some BAO taxis running around, I have reason to suspect we have a massive B allotment hiding somewhere in the office - stretching from BAP all the way to BAT. I could be wrong about this. Some BAP-D plates were apparently issued to government vehicles, and I haven't seen any of the around the county. However, those BAO taxis are from the county. Our BZ series was just as large, being from BZC to BZG. It took us 10 months to go through five letters in the third position. BAP to BAT would be the same size. BZ took 10 months to go through, so this would definitely be a big one. If we go back to how plates should be issued, alphabetically, I expect we'd find out soon. I do hope I'm right about this, because it would be wonderful to see a bunch of BAR plates running around Eagle County.
April 10th, 2023
AUF-X is the current issue.
April 5th, 2023
It took a lot of driving around to see one, but I did eventually manage to catch an April plate in the wild. AUF-Qs are currently being issued. I also noted recently that AUG-G was another one of the series that was issued in March. I did see a March issue BPU-U in my school parking lot, but I haven't seen any other BPUs to confirm it's from the county. Incredibly, it had an old month sticker from the 90s, being with a larger number font and spelling out "EXPIRES" all the way down on the side. That's impressive, and I haven't seen one of those stickers on a plate newer than the early 2000s. Absolutely incredible.
March 28th, 2023
Things are still quite messy for what's being issued, with all kinds of serial mixing. It seems the ARX plates are definitely over now, and the county has just been issuing Dolbys and Goldens simultaneously. It seems they're going through leftover AUG plates. I went to Grand Junction recently for a license plate club meet, and I got some interesting info on the way. Garfield County is currently issuing their own Dolby plates, late DDF and early DDG. They often get series near ours, such as their AMU/V near our AMS/T. This can make things quite difficult to track. I also noticed Mesa County got the AU plates just after ours - a smattering of late AUHs, AUIs, and AUJs are all over Grand Junction, going as far as AUL. Once April runs around, the new month of stickers will make it easier to identify newly issued plates, and I'll be able to pinpoint what we're issuing more accurately.
March 20th, 2023
It's been difficult to keep track of what's been being issued; I really haven't seen too many March stickers. It appears so far this month that they started with late AUF-Is, then did DDB-F, then properly issued DDB-G. After that, looks like they've gone back to the As, issuing AUG-Q. I assume they'll go back and finish issuing this weird AU series in random blocks before they go back to a normal series with normal progression. AUG-Q is pretty recent, being issued last Friday. Thanks random guy on my street who waited until the last day on his temp tag (the 16th) to get his plates! Watching temp tags and seeing when they go away is a good trick I use to tell what plates are being issued at a certain moment.
March 9th, 2023
Earlier today, I saw late AUF-I plates with March stickers. Turns out the latter half of AUF-I was issued in the first days of March, while the first half was issued well over a month ago. Furthermore, someone on my street just got DDB-F50. It looks like the Avon office has either packed up, or ran out of Golden plates. They made this switch, issuing DDB-H00 at some point in January, then went back to the AU plates. Now that nearly all of the alloted AU plates have been issued, it seems like they should be done issuing them, marking what should be the last of the A plates issued in the county. However, neither of those assertions are truly guaranteed, since they've switched between series rather sporadically recently.
Unlike the AU series, I do hope that the DDB plates (Dolby's) will be issued in order. So far, it does seem that DDB-H00 was issued before DDB-F, but I think that's just normal variation between the offices. The Avon office did appear to issue DDB-B and C, moving on to F as they should. DDB-D went to the El Jebel office, so I would imagine that Eagle received DDB-E, which I haven't seen yet. They seemed to issue the ARXs while DDB was issued the first time around. As usual, I'll keep a close eye on what I see on the road.
Finally, I wanted to touch on something I found interesting. There's a pretty clear class division at my high school between series. Seniors appear to have older plates, typically from the DP, BZ, or AM series. Juniors tend to have AR or AU plates, while Sophomores have been AU exclusively (the youngest sophomore became old enough to get their first car right when the AU series started).
March 8th, 2023
This is going to be a longer post, since I'm going to drop a bit of data. I've always felt that Eagle County had consistently newer license plates compared to the front range. I always saw older plates more often in the front range, but wasn't sure if it was just me, so I did an observational study on the matter. On the 4th, I marked down every Eagle County plate that drove by on the Frontage Road in Vail and crunched the numbers by format. The format I was especially looking at was the 000-XXX format issued from 2000-2013, excluding Qs issued from 13-15. These plates are what I consider "old" - because most of them show significant signs of wear, as the new base issued in 2000 is just terrible in terms of longevity.
My data proved correct: in Eagle County, 8% of plates were from this old format, while in Arapahoe County, 17% were. This is a significant statistical difference. The sample size for Eagle was 154, while Arapahoe's was 127. These results bring us a p-value of 0.01, which is statistically significant. For those of you who aren't uh... statistical geeks, that basically means that if we assumed Arapahoe County had the same proportion of license plates in that format as Eagle County did ( 8%), there would be a 1% chance that the results that we got in Arapahoe County (17% or more) would occur by random chance.
That said, this study wasn't perfect. For starters, the method of data collection was different. In Vail, I took down numbers of cars driving about, while in Denver, I took down numbers of cars parked in parking lots. To be exact, the lots were Walmart and Topgolf off Arapahoe Rd. This area of Denver is generally more affluent than other areas, which could somehow change the proportion of old license plates. Perhaps richer people keep their cars longer because they can afford more reliable vehicles. On the other hand, maybe the demographic of people at Topgolf are older and thus have older license plates. It's generally difficult to make a perfect observational study, but I feel that this was good enough to avoid heavily biased data. I would have liked to have a larger sample size, but I spent over an hour on the frontage road in Vail. There's only so many cars in a town of five thousand people, and I had some plates repeat that I had to take out. A census of every plate in each county would obviously be the best way to settle this for sure, but I have no access to that data and I see no way I could get it. And what's the fun in that?
With that data out of the way, there were some other points of interest. Eagle County had significantly more 82 copy plates (CXI, DPL, etc.) - 31% compared to 13%, with a p-value of 0.0001. That value is so low that it basically guarantees that the data proves the point. It seems that Eagle County, being much smaller, just happened to get several more plates from this format than the larger, more strict Arapahoe County. Frankly, Eagle County receiving that many plates from that format is weird. It's certainly an outlier.
Finally, Eagle County had 6 plates that were greenies. Arapahoe County had 0. Half of those plates were remade, which shows that when given the option to remake their old green plates, Eagle County had much more pride in their county-based numbers than Arapahoe did. Also, this correlates with how front range counties did a much better job taking these greenies off the road in 2000 than the more rural counties did. However, the sample size would have to be much larger to compare the proportion of these relatively rare greenies (I'll do this one day!)
March 5th, 2023
As part of my general allotment research, I've managed to find out one of Eagle County's future allotments (hasn't been issued yet). For starters, this allotment is being currently issued for motorcycles - I believe they're running through CRY-Q. The CRY part got my attention, since it's a word plate, and it's actually Eagle County's first. Word plates are pretty cool, and having the opportunity to get one is great. Yesterday, I saw CRX-I something running around in a different county. Since cycle plates come at the end of allotments, we can assume that we're going to get some regular plates between CRX and CRY. With that in mind, all the Honda enjoyers and depressed people of Eagle County can rejoice.
March 2nd, 2023
More ARX plates are starting to pop up. I've seen B through D, but A is yet to be issued. As far as I know, all the ARX plates issued so far were from the Eagle office. I know the Eagle office issued ARW-Z99, but ARX-A00 hasn't been issued. I imagine the Avon office has A00 and the other A and early B plates that haven't been issued. The new format XXX-X00 is uglier than the simpler XXX-000 or reverse, but having the fourth letter is a nice way to keep track of plates. I think it's easier to remember than a number. ARX-F was issued to another county, so the ARVers are definitely coming to an end soon.
I feel like the golden series is also coming to an end. Interestingly, I've only seen AUF plates for Jan/Feb issues, as well as some Decembers. 3 months is about the time it takes for the county to go through a full third letter block. With this in mind, if it's only AUF-AUH, we could expect it to last up to 9 months (3 more from now). Some fourth letter series haven't been issued yet. AUH-A, K, and L haven't been issued yet. The series ends at AUH-N, since that and later was given to Mesa County. AUG is the only full series, and those that haven't been issued yet include AUG-G, N, Q, and S. AUF is also incomplete, starting at AUF-G. We're yet to see AUF-G itself, as well as J, L, O, P, Q, R, and X. With that few plates remaining, it looks like the AU madness will finally come to an end within a month or two.
As for what's next, I have no idea. Perhaps the DDB series is larger than just A-F, and we'll start issuing that. Eagle County is seriously lacking in the "not A plates" department. Of our six new format issues, four were As. There's the random D we issued, and the BZ series. We should have several more B allotments that haven't been issued yet, and a lot of Cs, because somehow this county hasn't issued a single plate starting with C yet in this format. The Amsterdams (AMS/T, get it?) surprised me because they just finished issuing B plates at that time, and didn't think they'd go back to A. I thought it was going to be the last chance to get an A plate, then the ARVers came about, which I really thought would be the last, then the golden series. I'd be very surprised if Eagle County starting issuing another A series. However, it's important to note that there was only one relatively small POD block in the A series, which means a disproportionate amount of these A plates were shipped to counties. We're lined up to have something else in the AV, W, or X plates... but we'll see if we actually get them or move on to some B plate for once. Time will tell!
After months of trying to figure out the golden series, Stockholm Syndrome got the best of me, and I went ahead and actually got one of these plates! I like having plates from one of the county's larger allotments, because they're more recognizable, and the AU series proved itself after being issued for half a year. The plate I got was AUF-R70. The office in El Jebel was issuing DDB-D76 concurrently, further making the situation more complicated with different offices issuing different series. The AUF plate is marked 2019, which is when it was made, showing just how long it takes some plates to be shipped out. Here's a link to the plate:
https://imgur.com/a/rx3TQ0L
The stickers are 8/23 because that's when my car itself has the registration expire. In CO, when you get new plates for an already registered car, the expiration date remains the same. Had this not been issued normally, rather to some maniac like myself, it would have 2/24 stickers.
The AUF-R series is not necessarily from the end of February. AUF-Rs before 50 were issued in December, and it seems 50+ were issued now in February. Again, this series is a complete mess. I'm not sure how much longer this chaos will ensue, but at least I got to take part in it! This plate has a story.
Golden series chaos continues. Apparently, ARW-Z was issued this week at the office in Eagle, while the office in Avon was issuing the AUF-Hs. So the offices were issuing different series entirely, which is just weird. Furthermore, I've been taking a closer look at the AUB-AUE plates. It almost seems like they were instead issued to Garfield County, though I'm not sure. It's so hard to tell because there's a ton of car mixing in the Roaring Fork Valley, but I do remember an AUC travelling upvalley one morning when I went through there, which would line up with it being a Garfield plate (otherwise, they would have to be leaving work downvalley to go to their upvalley home, which nobody would ever do, especially at 7am). Also, it seems AUH-Y was issued to Mesa County, and AUE-Zs were given to Summit. So yeah, it's a complete mess. I have no idea what the El Jebel office is going through right now, so I'll give them a call tomorrow and hope they tell me.
Eagle County plates still continue to be chaotic. The AU series has been a complete mess, and not even the fourth letter in the plate is issued normally. Previously, they'd issue all the BZC-Y, then the BZC-Z, then the BZD-A. Now, you can't even trust the last letter. AUF-H04 was issued on the 21st this week, but AUF-H99 was issued over a month ago. With the El Jebel offices issuing AUB, AUC, and AUD plates in order, I've had a bit of a shower thought - perhaps they're not being issued plates far out of sequence, but rather, they're issuing them forwards, while the other two are issuing backwards. This would make it seem there's a big difference, but in a couple months' time, El Jebel would start issuing AUF stuff and the Eagle Valley offices would issue AUCs and such. Time will tell what happens. If that's the case, the AU series (which I like to refer to as the "golden series") would be Eagle County's largest to date. The previous largest, BZC-G, had 5 final letters worth of plates (about ten thousand plates), while AUB-AUG would be one letter larger, with about 12000 plates. They've been issuing it for about half a year now, and there seems to be no end in sight (besides the random ARW and DDB plates they issued for a couple weeks).
Today, I saw something interesting - it was a designer plate ending in -FRV. This was an Eagle County issued-plate, since before the Print on Demand system was introduced, designer plates matched up with county allotments just like gov and motorcycle plates! Sadly, I didn't get a pic, but it's worth talking about. The FRV in question matches up with the county's allotment of FRV-FRZ; the designer (and other non-pass plates) end up at the beginning or end of every allotment. I've also seen an even older -CMZ designer plate running around, which is spectacular! That makes it one of the oldest Eagle County coded designer plates driving around. It's also worth mentioning at this point that a set of letters can be used on several different plates. In the same parking lot, I saw a -CMZ plate that was just a regular passenger plate. I've also seen CXG- plates on passenger, motorcycle, and government types!
Welcome to the start of this blog. I intend on posting interesting plates I see around as well as keeping updates on what Eagle County is issuing. This blog is likely going to get less active around August of this year, as I'm going off to college then and it'll be significantly more difficult to keep track. Until that point, I intend on updating this as often as I can.
I'm going to sum up what's been going on in the last year in this post. In 2022, the state issued the last of the BZ series, ending with BZG-E69 in January. It then began the AMS/T series, which was issued until May, when the ARV-ARX series began. They only issued until ARW-V81, and then moved onto a new series in September, starting with AUH. This series was issued backwards, with AUH issued until October, AUG in Nov/Dec, and AUF in Jan/Feb. The office in El Jebel exclusively got the AUB, AUC, and AUD series, and appears to have issued them in proper order. I mention this because typically that office doesn't get plates so far off the general series. In January, they concurrently issued the DDB series, marking the first D-series issued in the state, followed by a short stint of ARW-W to Z, then going back to AUF. I checked in with the office on the 21st and they were going through AUF-H at the time. The fourth letter position seems to have been issue randomly, rather than sequentially with other series. I'm not sure what's going on with motorcycle plates, since you'd have to be a maniac to ride in the winter here, but they're likely issuing CRY- plates, since my neighbor got one of those at the end of the last riding season (pretty much no motorcycle plates are issued over the winter).
XXX-X00 allotments
Here, I'm showcasing a ton of pics of the Eagle County allotments I've seen in the newest format (XXX-X00). This, like the blog, is continuously updated with pics I see! Enjoy!
