1991– other 1991 plates
Commercial plates, 1991 pattern
Cxxnn series
Several principal variations exist in the Cxxnn series:
- COMMERCIAL upper case; tall letters on plate number; e.g., CCF55
- The Klondike title case; medium-width font, short letters on plate number); e.g., CCX96
- Commercial sentence case; medium-width font, short letters on plate number; e.g., CFJ65
- commercial lower case; thin font, tall letters on plate number; e.g., CJP75
- The Klondike title case; thin font, tall letters on plate number; e.g., CLA41
- The Klondike title case but bolder than previous; thin font, tall letters on plate number;, e.g., CXA96, compare with CLA41
- The Klondike title case; thick font, tall letters on plate number; e.g., CZA82
In theory, the COMMERCIAL/Commercial/commercial plates are for heavy vehicles, e.g., dump trucks and heavy transport vehicles while The Klonkdike plates are for lighter commercial vehicles that might otherwise have passenger plates, e.g., pickup trucks and cars.
The definition of what sort of commercial vehicle gets which type of plate is somewhat fluid. There are some fairly heavy specialized vehicles (e.g., pickup trucks with industrial equipment or truck bodies permanently mounted in the rear) with the light-vehicle plates. Many definitely commercial vehicles (e.g., name of company painted on side) carry passenger plates.
One might expect that plates in this series were manufactured and issued starting with CAA01 all the way through CZZ99. That is probably not the case. The plates marked The Klondike are generally alphabetically later in the series and on different types of vehicles than Commercial/commercial/COMMERCIAL ones, which are generally earlier in the series. There are old examples of both so it's likely they were issued in parallel.
The first half of the series, i.e., CAxnn–CKxnn(?), is a mixture of COMMERCIAL, Commercial, commercial, and The Klondike, even inside a sub-series. See, for example, the mixture of plate types in the CCxnn and CFxnn sub-series. Series CCXnn The Klondike (also CCVnn The Klondike, e.g., CCV03 below and CCZnn The Klondike, not shown) are error plates.
Hypothesis: Issue order for Cxxnn COMMERCIAL/Commercial/commercial series was CAxnn, CBxnn, possibly CGxnn, CHxnn, and then CJxnn; these were all commercial. After that, the mixture of types for CCxnn and CFxnn is confusing; possibly the COMMERCIAL plates were issued before the Commercial plates.
Were CKxnn ever issued? If so, were they commercial or The Klondike?
The last half of the series, i.e., CLxnn–CZxnn, all carry The Klondike and appear to progress generally alphabetically from older to newer. There is, however, some mixture of wide and narrow fonts in these series: CVxnn (all wide font?), CWxnn (wide at the start of the series, at least CWA and CWB; narrow at the end), CXxnn (narrow at the start of the series; wide at the end, possibly only CXXnn and CXZnn), and CZxnn (all wide). The different fonts indicate different manufacturers or at least different production runs and thus a strict numerical progression probably did not take place.
The last CZZnn plates (last of the Cxxnn series) were issued in early 2019. The ambiguous distinction between heavy and light commmercial vehicles (comments above) still exists. New commercial plates are still being issued in the Cxnnn series as well as in the new Cnnnx series described below.
More research is required to understand how plate types correlate to number series in the first half of Cxxnn.
Numbering:
- xx excludes letters I, Q, U, and Y but includes letter O.
- nn includes 01–99.
Examples:
Cxnnn series
The Cxnnn plates are for heavy vehicles and large trucks, the same as Cxxnn Commercial/commercial variations above. One sporty car was observed in Whitehorse with a Cxnnn plate.
Series CKnnn was issued starting about May 2018 and CLnnn in May 2019. The CMnnn series appeared in mid-2020, CNnnn appeared mid-2021, and CPnnn appeared early 2022.
There are two variations in the Cxnnn series:
- COMMERCIAL upper case, range CA001-CG500
- Commercial sentence case, heavier font, starting CG501
Numbering:
- x will probably exclude letters I, O, Q, U, and Y as the series evolves.
- nnn includes 001–999.