Virginia, like all Southeastern states, is a very difficult state to obtain early license plates. Virginia started relatively early, issuing its first official plates in 1906. This first issue was a simple white on black porcelain license plate with "VA" at the right side of the plate and no date. These were used until 1909. The plate pictured is probably a late 1907 issue based on the number.
The 1910 through 1913 issues were made of porcelain coated steel. 1914 saw the introduction of embossed steel plates, a process that continued through 1972, with a few exceptions.
During the period 1914-1923, the length of the license plates was in proportion to the number of digits on the plate. The size of the plates ranged from 10.5 inches long for low-numbered 1917 plates to 18.5 inches long for 6-digit 1921 plates.
In 1924, Virginia plates were made in New Jersey - if you compare the two states' plates for this year, they are identical in design and font. Virginia's prison suffered a large fire, which required plate manufacture to be outsourced for 1924.
Virginia plates exhibit slight die variations in some years. For example, if you look very closely at the state name and date on the two 1925 plates, you may be able to see that #229-401 has thinner dies, while #102-139 has the thicker dies. There is no real explanation for this variation except that perhaps two slightly different molds were used this year. There does not seem to be a cut-off where the dies switched either, as I have seen plates with numbers both higher and lower than #229-401 with the thicker font.
Like many states, Virginia had certain "bad paint years" due to inferior paint quality or other factors. Most notable is 1916 - it is extremely hard to find 1916 plates with the original blue paint on the numbers. 1926 was a particularly poor year as the black background paint faded to dark blue in most cases. In fact, many color charts refer to the 1926's background color as dark blue because of this. The blue paint on many 1914 plates faded as well, although not to the extent as in 1916.
