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Licence Plate Gallery

ONTARIO vs. O N T A R I O die survey

Which province name do you prefer: ONTARIO, or O N T A R I O? If you picked ONTARIO, you picked the rarer variation of the two.

O N T A R I O was used on all plates from 1968 to 1972, annual and quarterly truck plates from 1973 to 1980, and the vast majority of black-on-white multi-year truck plates from 1980 to 1994.

ONTARIO, meanwhile, is the squarer and narrower die introduced for passenger plates in 1973. It made odd and unpredictable appearances on non-passenger plates as well, surfacing on farm plates in 1979, dealer plates in 1981, and diplomatic plates in 1981 and 1984-86.

On black-on-white truck plates, the narrow die made scattered appearances off and on for nearly 15 years. Eric Tanner reports it appearing as early as the EC series (within the realm of the initial 1980 allocation); however, most plates with the narrow die hail from the K, L, M, or N series and date to the mid '80s. The narrow die reappeared yet again in the X and Y series of the early 1990s, shortly before the fully-embossed design was discontinued and an era of perplexing variation came to an end.

Why did this happen? Well, the plate shop at the Millbrook prison was set up with multiple hydraulic presses to handle a high manufacturing volume. One press may have had the narrow die, several other presses may have had the wide die, and individual truck plate orders may have ended up divided between them.

Whether for pleasure or for punishment, I've started tracking the die variations. Here's what I have so far, with recent additions in boldface:

Style	Low	High	Spread
Wide O N T A R I O	AB1-183	EC5-615	ACDE
Narrow ONTARIO	EC6-071*		E
Wide O N T A R I O	ED4-672	KP4-666	EHJK
Narrow ONTARIO	KR4-998	KS8-703	K
Wide O N T A R I O	KT6-571	KX4-366	K
Narrow ONTARIO	KY6-653	KZ3-884	K
Wide O N T A R I O	KZ8-341	LB8-204	KL
Narrow ONTARIO	LB9-842	LC5-195	L
Wide O N T A R I O	LE2-099	LF4-907	L
Narrow ONTARIO	LH2-109	LL8-490	L
Wide O N T A R I O	LN2-608	LT7-369	L
Narrow ONTARIO	LV5-471		L
Wide O N T A R I O	LW6-318	LX2-091	L
Narrow ONTARIO	LY2-436	MF7-879	LM
Wide O N T A R I O	MH6-194		M
Narrow ONTARIO	MJ3-768		M
Wide O N T A R I O	ML9-839		M
Narrow ONTARIO	MM4-155	MS2-722	M
Wide O N T A R I O	MS5-953	MV1-737	M
Narrow ONTARIO	MV7-728	NJ2-713	MN
Wide O N T A R I O	NL6-569	XS5-188	NORTVWX
Narrow ONTARIO	XX1-199		X
Wide O N T A R I O	XY6-972	YM9-170	XY
Narrow ONTARIO	YM9-894		Y
Wide O N T A R I O	YM9-999		Y
Narrow ONTARIO	YO7-301	YW3-833	Y
Wide O N T A R I O	YW4-052	YX4-422	Y
Narrow ONTARIO	YZ2-943		Y
Wide O N T A R I O	YZ5-847	ZB7-879	YZ

* reported by Tanner

Are you in possession of an Ontario 1980-94 truck plate outside these ranges? Can you narrow down any of these cutoffs, or find new break points to add between the old ones? If so, I'd love to hear from you!

Die variations on related types of Ontario plates

Bus plates with both narrow and wide dies exist; however, bus plates were produced and issued in lesser quantities than truck plates and it's doubtful that they experienced anywhere near as many back-and-forth swaps between styles. Bus plates of the 1980s also have low survival rates today, making them more difficult to track:

Wide O N T A R I O	BA5-120	BE2-924
Narrow ONTARIO	BE4-350	BE6-542

As far as I am aware, all 1980-94 PRP, PRP bus, and school bus plates were produced with the wide O N T A R I O die, while all farm plates were produced with the narrow ONTARIO die.

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