Purchased at auction a 1946 Chevy 4403 (1 1/2ton with stake bed). It came with 2 serial number plates. The original plate is there and serial number is legible. The new plate - and it looks brand new - has the number that is on the title. When I asked the consignor about it, he said this “…don't know when we lost the second plate. There's a company that makes the plate. Gave them a copy of the registration and they sent me that.” The new plate list the max weight at 4600lbs. The truck is actually rated at 15,000 lbs. He says he contacted the people who made the new plate and they said the weight rating was as high as they could go. I am very confused. He either didn’t want to tell me the whole story or he legitimately doesn’t really know.
For some reason some people have trouble finding the serial number plate on the cowl under the hood of '46 trucks. Don't know why... it's really in plain sight... just seems to happen. This might lead to someone thinking the truck had no plate, and going through the process of getting a new one and registering to that new plate.
New plates in the style of the original plate are available on Ebay for example. But they are generic in that they all say 4600 lbs max weight to my knowledge. This is because they were modeled on the plate for a 1/2 ton truck.
BUT...my questions would be: Why did the seller have a registration that didn't match the original plate... but supposedly matches a plate that wasn't attached to the truck and was thus able to be "lost"? Does your registration show and match the actual GVW of your truck? Or does it match the 4600 lbs on the new plate the seller acquired using the registration you got with the truck? (Which might suggest something a little hinky.) Seems a little suspicious to me.
If I were you, I'd try to get the truck registered to the original number on the original plate on the truck, and throw the rest away.
Just to verify that your original plate IS the original plate... can you give us the first number, 2 letters, and next number on your original plate?
PS By the way... Nice Truck!! Can we have more pictures please? 🙂
