Liberia licence plates

I blogged recently about renewing our licence plates. The old Liberian licence plates are now being sold in the Ship Shop for $10 - most of the ANA and AFM plates have already gone, leaving only the old ANA plates left, which are the ones with the most history. I love these plates - they were made in 2005, less than 2 years after the war had finished, when Liberia was in total ruins and the Ministry of Transport didn't even have any spare licence plates to print (they were being made by a company in America, who wouldn't release them until Liberia paid their bill). So they found some old ones, squashed the old letters flat, and re-pressed them with our registration numbers, and then hand-painted them. You can still see the old numbers through the paint. Not only are they a piece of Mercy Ships history, but they are a piece of Liberian (and West African) history. A bargain at $10!

In the photo above, the original 2005 hand-painted plates aren't reflecting the camera's flash, whereas the newer 2007 machine-painted plates are! Another fascinating blog entry from Olly.