Dont know what this is off of, but man does it look good on my car.

while making the rounds at a swap meet in monroe i stumbled across this, didnt know what the hell it was off of and i didnt see a price on it, asked the gut how much and he said, "i'll take $3"...safe to say sold.
reason being, the whole mounting bracket/socket/cover for the stock license plate/light system thats currently on my cadillac was screwed, so after drilling the back pannel and changing the blubs to 12V's its monted and looking good.
Now the question is, What the hell's this thing off of?
its brass im guessing, being that when i sanded around the holes for contact, it was golden colored, the lenses are real frosted glass, wires are cloth covered and the entire thing flips down like something is supposed to be behind it.
even if i never find out what it is, it looks damn good on the car.

 

I don't know about the bracket, but I asked my wife where "Cheese-ning" Michigan was, and she laughed her a$$ off! She lived in Owosso for seven years... What do I know? I'm from TEXAS.

 

HA!
Dont worrie, i've heard a LOT worse mispronouncing.

 

nobody at all huh?

 

Looks good! From now on it will be know as being from a 1953 Cadillac Fleetwood.

 

there you go, when origin unknown, make your own.

 

Looks good, almost like it was made for your car.

Frank

 

at night it looks fantastic, the pictures dont really do it justice.
the glass is like that kind you see for old table lamps, really thick and dense, so with it frosted like it is its a nice warm glow. I know it might sound stupid, but aside from the sliding inside door handels, this is my favorite part of the car.
And it also lights up the intire plate, the pictures cant show that very well with the imbalence, plus its a soft white, not school bus yellow.

 

No idea what it's from, but it's a cool piece. Don't recall ever seeing one like it.

 

Nice item. Nice car. One could say it's a happy accident, but it sounds more like the product of your sharp eye and your good taste and judgment. The more one practices the luckier one gets. Congrats.

 

That could be anything from truck/trailer stuff to European. It is kinda wide. Looks great tho!

 

3 bux...can't go wrong...I'm with 50 burb...looks possibly euro because of the width

 

That's one of the joys of being a hot rodder. Let the restorers worry about what's correct or what vehicle the part is from. We're free to use it if it looks cool and the price is right. Probably a lot of us have some "danged if I know what it's from" pieces on our cars. We could probably start a thread about the unidentified pieces we have on some of our cars.

 

1953 cadillac......

 

oh , you meant the lights , sorry about that ....

 

Flips down for gas fill?

 

Id say being a bit wide, it could originate from either from us or the poms.......australia or england......just a maybe....looks great....I like lights too........Bert

 

Thanks guys for the feedback.
northern skink, your assesment is correct, i may only be 19, but i've trecked more swap meet's, car shows and junk yards then id like to remember.
Now 'Burb and Oddrod, here's the strange thing, the holes barely and i mean BARELY line up, im at the end of the track outwards on the bracket and almost all the way in on the plate as you can see in the pics. now a 90's blue michigan plate looks lost on it, but fits also. the adjustment openings are about 4" wide. but still, i think a european plate would still fit. maybe im dealing with some old ass JC Whitney style universal fit, haha.
Shiny, thats the thing i should of said earlier, it'd be real hard for that being that the mounting frame for the bracket to the car is directly behine it, it was bolted to the filler pannel from the trunk to the splash pan, and the whole thing behind there is about the size of the plate. and its not spring loaded, it has like a ladder support, get it past a certain poit and it pops in place, then it has a slip lock tab at the top to hold it shut when back up. what im thinking is it was to let you move the plate foward to open the trunk or something.
But really, im just glad its not so common, and like 38ford said, i could spend time trying to find out something i dont know, or just enjoy the look and functionality to the fullest.

 

The extra wide plate area and frosted thick glass lenses plus chrome plated brass says pre-WWII to me and maybe big truck accessory or even Marine application like a lite-up name plate or something.

 

1952-54 Kaiser Traveler

 

LowFat48 you are a super sleuth......

( I think it looks better on the Fleetwood )

 

I had to make up for telling him what bumper he had ....... 16 hour shifts are a killer

 

looks good and what other tag lite can ya get for 3 bux????

 

That reminds me - I need to get some sleep myself.....

Had a bit of a dig around and those Kieser Travellers were pretty nifty with what must of been the first Hatchback....

 

the flip down he is describing must have been to move the plate out of the way to operate the latch for the hatch back

 

Pretty amazing that someone figured it out - leave it to the HAMB !

 

Before you guys bake LowFat a cake, look at the Kaiser's bumper. See that big flat spot in the middle that looks about the size of a license plate? I'd bet that Kaiser meant the tag to reside there. Never mind its lack of a lamp. In that time frame I'd bet license plate lamps were options like a radio, heater, padded dash or whitewall tires.

I'm guess that the original $3 plate frame thing is a optional Whitney or Sears type part. And as for its width, a whole lot of American plates were like 16" wide before the war. World War II, I mean.

 

the same one is on this Kaiser Manhattan , unless every Kaiser owner bought the same JC whitney accessories for their car. I like chocolate cake

 

Look at the folded out picture of the kaiser, they intended that car to be operated with the "tailgate" down and went to great lengths to hinge the license to allow it to be seen.

It really does flow nice with the rear of the caddy.

good luck!

 

go lowfat!
haha, kinda funny that we were all thinking overseas stuff and its off a freakin' kaiser.
Well, i guess you could even say its period correct, haha. its off a 53!
banjeaux bob, ........holy hell, well i guess that's what we call coordination.