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NOVA SCOTIA LICENCE PLATES
SAMPLES, CONCEPT PLATES
AND SPECIAL EVENT PLATES
Last updated
Jully 10, 2025
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the Official 2023 Specimen Set including all 38 types
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In addition to licence
plates issued for actual use on vehicles, most jurisdictions also produce other
plates
not authorized for use on vehicles.
Originally these were samples produced to provide
to other licencing authorities
so that each knew what the others were producing,
and for law enforcement
purposes
More commonly however, these are available to the general public
as
collectibles. Most commonly these samples are produced only in
passenger plate
varieties, but other types are possible.
SAMPLE VS SPECIMEN VS CONCEPT: What is the
difference?
No doubt there are various definitions of what sample
plates are, and how they are different from specimen
plates.
Samples are produced in appreciable quantities for distribution of
some sort.
This distribution could be limited to a sharing with other
jurisidictions or might be more generalized and
open to whomever wants one,
including the general public.
Today in Nova Scotia, sample plates are available to anyone who is willing to
pay the fee that goes with them.
Currently in this province, and inmost jurisdictions samples are limited to the passenger type.
Specimen plates are produced in smaller quantities and generally as examples of
current plates, to be used internally
by the jurisdiction for reference
or display purposes.
Concept plates are
produced on the request of the issuing authority, or
unilaterally by a plate manufacturer. Those
that are ordered
by MV authorities are generally
to consider differing designs for a type of plate
that is intended to be introduced. Those
that are produced by the plate manufacturer on its
own are usually meant to solicit business.
They are not
issued to the public, but rather to
the MV authority for consideration.
None of these plates are to be mounted on vehicles,
and therefore some purists do not consider them to
be real licence plates. In my case I collect
these as they come along, as they are an interesting
subdivision of the hobby.
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NS CONCEPT &
SPECIMEN PLATES
In most jurisdictions there are ideas floated re new designs for
main stream plates as well as specialty plates that honour or
commemorate causes or organizations. There may
also be proposals for new components (such as plate or coating
materials), colours and fonts. These ideas may be advanced to
the level of producing a limited number of specimens.
This process can be at the instigation of the issuing authority, or
from manufacturers attempting to increase their business.
These differ from samples in that there are only very few of each
type produced, and these are not for general distribution to other
agencies or to the public. In Nova Scotia there
have been several plates of this type produced, with some leading to
actual issuance as official plates. For the
purposes of this website I am referring to these plates collectively
as "administrative concept specimen plates".
Perhaps the most common type of
specimen in Nova Scotia has been the type demonstrating proposals
for special events such as royal visits and similar. I
do not have any of these in my collection but they are known to
exist for the Pope's visit and at least one royal visit.
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| The examples
above are both
intended to demonstrate to NS RMV the proposed high definition
background sheeting that was eventually adopted and introduced at
GCY001. As is obvious, the first is a blank,
with no embossing or debossing, whereas the second is intended to
show what a complete plate would look like. AAA000 is
not a valid serial to be actually issued. Note that
AAA001 was the first "real" plate issued when alphanumeric plates
began in 1979. This AAA000 does NOT predate that and the
same specimen serial may have been produced more than once, for
different purposes over the years. This iteration of AAA000
was produced sometime around 2017 or thereabouts (rough estimate).
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Above: Concept plates for the
Acadian Heritage specialty plate. Top left is the Acadian
flag. Top right is the Acadian star.
Bottom left is the Grand-Pre church. Bottom right is the statue of
Evangeline. These four designs were put to a public vote,
with the flag concept winning. In the resulting issued plate
the English and French slogans were interchanged top and bottom.
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This pair
of concept plates was manufactured in possible anticipation of Nova
Scotia joining the North American trend of issuing plates to show
affiliation to various teams, schools, causes and organizations.
Others have been seen. None of these
were ultimately put into
production. |
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This motorcycle veteran
concept plate was produced in 2016,
and differs from the plate actually issued commencing in
2017
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SPECIAL EVENT
and COMMEMORATIVE PLATES
Special event plates have been issued in Nova Scotia on a
number of occasions.
These include at least a
couple of Royal Visits, and most likely also the
visit by Pope John Paul II in 1984.
THESE SPECIAL EVENT PLATES ARE NOT NORMAL LICENCE PLATES.
THEY ARE NOT REGISTERED TO INDIVIDUAL VEHICLES AND
ARE MOUNTED ONLY FOR A VERY SHORT DURATION
IN ORDER
TO GAIN ACCESS TO VENUES OR SIMPLY TO BECOME
SOUVENIRS.
IT IS UNCLEAR AS TO WHETHER THEY WERE
MOUNTED OVER TOP OF THE REGULAR PLATE ON THE
VEHICLE in the days when there was a front plate
This is an
example of the special event plates issued for the
G7 Summit held in Halifax in 1995.
This was a
huge event for Halifax as it included the political
leaders of the USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy and
Japan, and of course Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
This plate is unused, and this does add to the
belief that many more were produced than there were
vehicles needing them.
I have seen one
numbered in the upper 300 range.
Royal
Visits
There have been many visits by the Royal Family
since the advent of
licence plates in Nova Scotia. I do not know
when the first special plates
were produced for such visits. It is likely
that a red plate with crest was
used in Nova Scotia in 1951 for Princess Elizabeth and
Prince Philip (yet to become Queen).
Such plates were used in other provinces.
A plate was issued for the Queen's visit in 1976.
There may have
been a plate issued for her visit
in 1959 and then most likely again
in 1994 and
2010. Other
royal visits in the 80's and later that may have
plates include:
1983 Prince and Princess of Wales (Charles and
Diana)
1985 Prince Andrew (Duke of York)
1987 Prince Edward (Earl of Wessex)
1988 Princess Margaret
1991 Princess Anne (the Princess Royal)
2014 Prince of Wales & Duchess of Cornwall (Charles
and Camilla)
COMMEMORATIVE PLATES
This type of plate has been ordered by
the NS authorites on a few occasions to mark conventions
of MV authorities or automotive
related organizations. None of them are
authorized for use on vehicles, and some would say that they are not licence
plates at all!
The exact nature of this Classic Cars Club of
America plate is unknown. Presumably this series
was produced for an event, but its date and
location are unknown, as is the number of plates produced
This plate
was distributed at a conference of the American
Association of Motor Vehicle
Administrators Region 1.
I have been told that it is common for the host
jurisdiction to provide a souvenir plate to the attendees.
