Trailer License Plate (Tax Badge)

次回、この記事の日本語版を投稿します。

Years ago I did a four part series on bicycle license plates a.k.a. tax badges (see links below).
License Plate ①
License Plate ②
License Plate ③
License Plate ④

I have mentioned repeatedly how "bicycles" in Japan during the early~mid 1950s were prized possessions; similar, if not even exceeding, that of automobile ownership today.  They were the only affordable means of private transportation for the vast majority of households and small businesses. They were expensive costing around two months' salary or more; people and businesses paid on installment plans to purchase them; those who could not afford them rented them by the hour; carrier cycles and utility cycles attached with trailers to haul goods filled the niche of trucks for local small businesses; much like luxury cars of today, bicycles proudly bore a fender ornament.  And, to drive this point of bicycles having a similar status as that of automobiles home, one often overlooked fact is that from 1950-1958 bicycles in Japan were taxed and had license plates.

Not only bicycles but trailers (known in Japanese as rear cars) were also required to be registered.  Hitching a trailer to a bicycle literally transformed it into a human-powered truck.
  
Taake’s写真館

I have finally found an actual example of a trailer license plate dating back nearly 70 years ago.  Lets take a look.

First is the size, smaller than a bicycle license plate.  Bicycle taxes were local taxes thus the shape and size of license plates varied depending on the locality.  In the photo below we compare the license plates from the same locality, Nagoya.  At the top is a trailer license plate from 1953, and, below it is a bicycle license plate from 1956.


Left: Bicycle license plate
Right: Trailer license plate
 
Let's examine the trailer license plate.


As was the case with bicycle license plates, trailer license plates were attached with rivets.  
The stamp reads ”Void if tampered”.


Upper left:  Trailer


Upper right:  License plate (tax badge)


Lower left: Nagoya City


Lower right: 1953


License plates serve as an important reminder that, in the early to late 1950s, prior to Japan becoming an automobile society, bicycles were the main mode of local private transportation.  And for small businesses, a trailer hitched to a bicycle literally served as a truck.

BCC