Museum to spotlight license plate collection

    Tom Elder has close to 200 Nebraska license plates, and a part of that collection will be featured at Sunday’s Chase County Museum program.
    Elder of Imperial said he plans to bring 32 plates from his collection, and will discuss them during the afternoon program at 1:30 p.m.
    His collection dates back to his younger years growing up on the family farm, he said. The previous farm owner kept his expired plates, and nailed them up on the garage wall on the farm, but didn’t take them when the place sold to the Elders.
    Elder said his dad kept them after their family sold the farm, and he inherited them.
    Since then, he’s added to the collection and has every single Nebraska state plate, except one, since they began issuing them in 1915.
    The only year missing in his Nebraska collection is 1945.
    Part of his program Sunday will include some of the license plate “fiascos” Nebraska has dealt with over the years, he said.
    One of those was in 1951 when state officials decided to quit using the county numbers on plates. That didn’t set well with most Nebraskans, he said, and the state went back to the individual county numbers in 1952 even though they had planned to issue plates every three years.
    The museum will open at 1 p.m. Sunday and refreshments will be served.