A one-of-a-kind license plate issued by the City of St. Louis in 1911 has been rediscovered after being tossed in the trash 40 years ago — and nearly lost forever.
That's the remarkable story told by Donley Auctions, an auction company based in Union, Illinois. The company now plans to auction the discovery and thinks it should have no problem fetching a five-figure sum. "We've put the estimate at $10,000 to $20,000, but who knows?" says Mike Donley, an auction specialist with the company. "I've gotten a call from a man already, saying, 'I've got to have it.'"
As Donley tells it, in the early days of automobiles, cities had to scramble to figure out the infrastructure to support them. "There were no road, no speed limits, no stop signs," he says. "It all had to be invented very quickly." Cities stepped up by issuing license plates that allowed them to levy a fee on car owners. (Eventually, of course, the state took that service over, Donley says: "They said, 'We need money too.'")
St. Louis got into the license plate game in 1907, Donley says, and issued the one depicted above just four years later. At the time, rather than a complex arrangement of letters and numbers, plates were simply numbered, and the first automobile to get a plate in a given year would get No. 1. The 1911 Cadillac that scored No. 1 in 1911 was owned by Ben A. Hugel of 4004 Giles Avenue, in what is now Dutchtown. Mr. Hugel worked as a manufacturer's agent, which may explain how he landed the first license plate in both 1911 and 1912.
Now, that history may seem interesting enough, but for this particular plate, it's only the beginning. According to a narrative compiled by the auctioneers, the plate was already a focus of curiosity in the World War II years. It was paired up with a postcard and a 1937 news article for a War Bonds drive, and the framed display was then hung in the lobby of the North St. Louis Trust Co.
It hung there for years. But then change came to the bank — and it lost its longtime home.
COURTESY DONLEY AUCTIONS
The plate is part of a display made to hawk government bonds during World War II.
As the auction house reports, "The bank changed hands in the early 1970s becoming the Allegiant Bank (now PNC). During the renovation of the bank, the license plate display was tossed into a trash barrel. A former employee of North St. Louis Trust rescued it and took it home where it sat in a corner of his basement for over 40 years."
It was in 2023, the auction house says, that the man's son, Domenic Giofre, discovered it. He'd remembered seeing it as a boy in the family home and rediscovered it while cleaning out his father's home.
Fortunately, he realized it wasn't junk. And now Giofre's find could be yours. Donley Auctions is hoping for major interest at its online auction on April 28.
Mike Donley notes that the auction house previously handled a No. 1 issued by Chicago in 1904, and that one fetched $40,000.
"It just takes two guys who want it badly enough," he says.
See DonleyAuctions.com for more info.
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
