Collecting Ontario licence plates for 40 years
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1936 ONTARIO PLATE ALLOCATION
Click here to skip to the allocation data table below.
All-numeric plates numbered 1-500 are known to have been reserved for Members of Provincial Parliament, although the text from the Ontario Motor League manual for 1936 says these plates were simply issued to "Toronto."
Ontario passenger plates started with either one or two letters from 1930 to 1936, and contained one to four trailing numerals, up to a maximum of five characters. Ontario omitted the letters G, I and Q in 1936. Note that the reserved single-letter, D-prefix series for doctors, which is specifically identified in the 1934 list, is simply allocated to "Toronto" for 1936. It is known among collectors that doctor courtesy plates did continue through 1936.
The Ontario Motor League Manual lists the serial numbers in a different order from what I believe to be the actual issuance. The OML Manual starts with single-letter prefixes, and then goes immediately to the double-letter prefixes of the same letter.
A1 to A9999
AA1 to AZ999
B1 to B9999
BA1 to BZ999 ...
However, the city of Toronto was consistently assigned plates with a single letter prefix only. As Toronto was issued several runs of these single-letter prefixes, other major cities like Hamilton, Ottawa and London also received single letter prefixes. Generally, the smaller centres received plates with a two-letter prefix. Given that the two-letter prefixes only progress partway through the alphabet before ending at the LR series, it is likely that the order of issuance is as follows:
A1 to A9999
B1 to B9999
C1 to C9999 ... continuing through
Y1 to Y9999
Z1 to Z9999
AA1 to AZ999
BA1 to BZ999 ... etc.
Based on this pattern, the highest number produced would have been OR-309. No two-letter prefixes were issued beyond this point, according to the OML list. The OML manual specifically notes that the MM and MW series were omitted from production. My best guess for that would be that both dies together might have been too wide to fit the hydraulic press. I guess I'll have to measure the next M and W characters I see on a 1936 plate to determine how much wider those characters might be.
You can view the table in the original OML manual order, or switch to my hypothesized "Issue Order" of single-letter prefixes issued first, followed by double-letter prefixes. Just click the headings "OML Order" and "Issue Order" to rearrange the table. You can also put the cities in alphabetical order, if you like. Any order can be reversed by clicking a heading a second time.