Collector’s Bounty? Thousands of Ohio License Plates Printed Before Error Discovered 

Oops. It seems one “Wright” definitely was a wrong—but potentially lucky for collectors. Ohio had already produced 35,000 new license plates in a design introduced to the public on October 21, 2021, before realizing that the Wright Brothers’ 1903 Wright Flyer featured at the top of the plate was flying backward. The “Sunrise in Ohio” license plate by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles has a field of wheat, a city skyline and, at the top, an image of the plane pulling a banner proclaiming Ohio as the “Birthplace of Aviation.” The Wright airplane had what looks like today’s rudders at the front, not the back. Essentially the plate showed the banner attached to the plane’s front, not the back. The mistake was discovered after a press conference by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and production was halted. The new design has the “Wright” orientation of the plane. Ohio officials said they’ll recycle the plates that have already been printed. Another famous airplane printing error has proven very profitable for some collectors. The “Inverted Jenny,” a 24-cent postage stamp printed in 1918 with an airplane upside down, flew into the collecting stratosphere in June 2021 when a block of four of the stamps sold at Sotheby’s for $4.9 million, a record for a United States postage stamp at auction and $2 million more than its last reported sale price (see Kovels’ July 16, 2016 News, News, News article).

Photo: Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles