1978 Nation's Capital Baseplate

The Nation's Capital baseplate is undated. Although "3-31" is displayed with a black-on-white sticker applied to the lower left corner of the earliest plates of this base, there is no permanent year designation. The month sticker was applied before each plate was coated with clear lacquer, an unusual practice in plate manufacturing. Plates of this base are numbered from 500-001 through 925-000. Although most 1978 baseplates have an unpainted (i.e. natural aluminum) back, plates as low as 633-645 and up through at least 723-515 have a painted dark green back.

There was no general reissuance involving this base; it was issued only to motorists that purchased new registrations during the period of issuance indicated in the table above. Therefore, no year designation was designed into the plate as had been done with the 1974 base. All plates of this base were initially issued with a year sticker attached, and the following reflective stickers were used to validate 1978 baseplates:

Natural Stickers Under the Annual (non-staggered) System

Natural Stickers Under the Staggered System (A separate month sticker was also used)

Dated 86 stickers (accompanied by month stickers as late as SEP) were issued to validate 1978 baseplates through September 30, 1986 (as discussed in the 1984 baseplate section), while 1984 baseplates were being issued for new registrations.

Staggered Registrations

The expiration of passenger car registrations was staggered daily beginning on August 1, 1983, while 1978 baseplates were being issued. On this date, however, only the expiration of new registrations began to be staggered. Introducing existing registrations to the system occurred during the following renewal period, that of March 1984, at which time the entire population of existing registrations was "evenly divided alphabetically" in order to assign expiration dates throughout the year. The initial expiration date of newly-staggered existing registrations was spread over a three- to fourteen-month period in order to get the system started. These details were provided to motorists in a Q&A brochure prepared by the DMV that may be viewed by clicking on the sticker placement graphic below.

Ever since the inception of D.C.'s staggered system registrations have expired daily, based upon the initial registration date, rather than the end of the month. In other words, registrations expire every day even though only the expiration month, and not the date, is indicated with 1985 and later plate stickers.

Due to the implementation of this system there are two types of natural D.C. plates with a 1984 expiration. To anyone that purchased a new registration through the last day of July 1983, a single sticker marked 3/31/84 was issued with the new plate. Motorists that bought a new registration from August through early 1984 received two stickers: one bearing the abbreviated month of expiration (AUG, SEP, etc.) for placement in the lower left corner, and a red-on-white year sticker marked simply "84" for the lower right corner.

(Under the one-year system, the one-year registration issued to anyone that purchased a new registration on the first day, August 1, 1983, technically expired on Tuesday, July 31, 1984, but no plates with JUL and '84 stickers are known. The actual expiration date may have been shifted one day to August 1, 1984; it may have actually been July 31 but evidenced by AUG and '84 stickers; or it may simply be that none of the few plates issued on that first day have been observed.)

After it processed a motorist's annual registration renewal transaction, the DMV dispatched a new registration certificate and corresponding plate validation stickers in a pink envelope upon which was printed sticker application instructions. These images show the sticker placement diagrams of pre- (left) and post-staggered registration implementation envelopes. Click on each image for a view of the entire envelope.

	Motor vehicle insurance was required in the District of Columbia as of October 1, 1983. This two-part (carbonless) form was provided to motorists with existing registrations with a requirement that they provide information about their insurer. The bottom copy, which is yellow, was to be retained by the motorist and kept with the corresponding vehicle's registration certificate.