1953 Wheaties License Plate

1953 Wheaties License Plate

I only have the one plate that I received in my stocking. I collect real license plates. But this is pretty interesting.

I added a picture of the original advertising I found online. I also thought it was interesting that they made certain plates very rare and hard to find. So the picture shows a current auction listing, claiming to be a full Canada set..but it's actually missing the 2 hard to find plates shown in the next picture. Another note is the U.S. states only had 48, because Alaska & Hawaii were not yet states plus Washington D.C.

"In 1953 General Mills produced four different series of miniature license plates that came as premiums in boxes of Wheaties Cereal. You could also mail in $0.25 and a box top for an envelope with 10-12 plates from one of the series. The Washington DC and Maharajah plates were bonus plates that you could only get in the cereal boxes. This license plate collection was one of the first, and most successful, premiums used to boost cereal sales and these license plates reportedly led to a nationwide 50% increase in Wheaties sales."

"Sets:

The 48 plate Continental United States set (without Alaska & Hawaii which were not yet states & Washington D.C.). These were divided into 12 plate sets of the Eastern U.S., Southern U.S., Midwest U.S. & Western U.S..
The 10 plate Territories & Possessions Set (Maharajah, Hawaii, Alaska, Virgin Islands, Guam, "Italy-Military", (Panama) Canal Zone, Philippines, The Dominican Republic & The District of Columbia)
The 12 plate Canada Set (Northwest Territories, Yukon Territory, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Manitoba & Saskatchewan)
The 10 plate Old World & Europe set (Iran, Cuba, Turkey, The Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Monaco, Egypt, Malta & Switzerland)"