In some cases, sellers offer scantinformation -- like this item, titledsimply, "License Plate", with neithera jurisdiction name, or a guess at its age:

There were not many bidders,so we scooped it up with littlecompetition. What a cool number!

Sometimes, sellers make genuine mistakes -- (over the years, we've found more than one porcelain license plate under eBay's "Dolls & Bears" category.) Other times, vendors are unaware that eBay has a dedicated license plate site, so they'll just stick those tags anywhere -- which is how we found this nifty gem, listed under a category for porcelain Kitchen Collectibles!

There are other cases in which sellers simply don't know WHAT that strange item is they just found in the garage -- which is how WE FOUND THIS beauty, (first thought to be New York, but which we now think may be New Jersey). It was listed in an obscure "Bus & Taxi" category:

The amazing thing about that old leather, was thatit had NO BIDDERS throughout a seven-day auction, despite a reserve price of only ten bucks! We initially missed out on it, when our snipe failed due to an outage on the snipe website -- (which has taught us to avoid the snipe!) Thankfully, we nabbed it when it was listed a second time....WHEW!

Don't care for rusties? Neither did the folks who saw these old Arizonas, (a '16 and a '21), as there weren't many bidders. But then again, they were buried deep in an odd eBay Motors category. We stumbled on them while testing our Old license plate searching page for eBay Motors.

This '61 Delaware Sample was just one part of a nice "mixed lot" of license plates -- and not a bad deal either, as the final auction price was about a dollar a tag!

We have special tools to help you search Mixed lots of license plates, and license plates in "OTHER" license plate categories..

Truth be told, we don't really collect pre-state-looking old bumper attachments with the New Jersey state seal...But we were sure happy to be the only bidder on this beauty -- and it cost us only nine bucks and change! That's why WE'RE convinced that it pays to occasionally check out the "most obscure" searching area on this site: Our pages that search Categories unrelated to license plates, and license plates listed under the "wrong" state..

We never know why some license plate auctions don't get a lot of traffic, or bids -- especially when they're listed in the correct license plate auction category. But we DO know that if you regularly use our section of License Plates Auctions by Proper State category, there's less of a chance that anything good will fall through the cracks -- which is how we found THIS little gem, for a final bid price of just $19.

We've got to stop apologizing that, "Some of our more 'obscure' search links may deliver a few non-license plate items" ...Because we otherwise would never have uncovered this great old Florida "Certificate Plate", for only $15.

Old license plates.com helps you find "mistakes" too -- sometimes at less than the cost to ship 'em! Could any license plate collector resist a pair of cute, cycle-sized porcelain signs for $1.75?

Collect vintage paper? We glommed a stack of licenses and registrations spanning six decades and three continents -- including some nice Hawaii wartime stuff -- for less than 80 cents an item!

Collect old tag pix? It's hard not to, when you're the ONLY BIDDER on this 4"x6" original shot of a three-digit Massachusetts Automobile Register.

Some of the best old license plates are missed by collectors who can't keep up with all the changes on the auction website - such as, when the category numbers, or sub-domains change...

...That's what we credit for finding these spectacular little porcelains from South Africa