The 1953-54 Wheaties Cereal Premium License Plates

In 1953, General Mills Company had miniature license plates designed as premiums to be placed inside boxes of Wheaties.

The first set in 1953 included the 48 states of that era plus the District of Columbia.
Taking into account for back color and bolt hold varieties, Charles Daughtrey, ALPCA #14252, has noted 107 different issues of the 1953 set

Charles Daughtrey notes,"All of the (wheaties) plates were likely made by J. L. Clark Mfg. out of Rockford, Ill. I have found newspaper articles saying the same, and have spoken with the son of one of the managers (now 80 years old) who confirmed that they made the plates and that his dad used to bring them home to the neighborhood kids as treats. J. L. Clark expanded to Lancaster, PA in 1954 and opened up a New York sales office - which is LIKELY where they picked up the job to make a 1955 plate set for Leader Candy & Novelty Co. out of Brooklyn. Those plates are scarce to rare, so much so that there is not one complete set known. Something evidently happened to curtail the distribution of these plates because they are SO hard to find anywhere. I have 11 of them and believe that's the second largest accumulation anywhere. I have seen images of 40 different plates and was able to construct how a complete set would likely appear, and have attached it to this email. It is the only such image in the world. I am a graphic designer and built all of the files for these plates myself.

That was followed in 1953 by 3 sets of 10 of what were then called foreign license plates. Those sets included the following listed below:

1953 Wheaties "Foreign" Sets

(Just click on the different colored, underlined words to see examples of the sets. Use your back button to get back to the index.)
Old World 
Denmark 
Egypt 
Iran 
Malta 
Italian Military 
Monaco 
Netherlands 
Portugal 
Switzerland 
Turkey		 Islands and Territories
Alaska 
Canal Zone 
Cuba 
Dominican Republic 
Guam 
Hawaii 
Northwest Territories 
Phillipines 
Virgin Islands 
Yukon Territory		 Canada 
Alberta 
British Columbia 
Manitoba 
New Brunswick 
Newfoundland 
Nova Scotia 
Ontario 
Prince Edward Island 
Quebec 
Saskatchewan
The 1954 Set

    In 1954, Wheaties returned with a set of the 48 states and DC again. Some confusion in collecting the sets is caused by dating of some of the plates. In 1953, 4 plates (Maryland, Missouri, Wisconsin and DC) were dated 1954 for their expiration dates. Concurrently, the 1954 set had those plates dated 1955. This confusion leads some to think there may be a 1955 set. There isn't. There were also no more foreign plates or sets added in 1954.

Other Miniature Cereal & Food Premium Plate Sets

    A set similar to the 53/54 Wheaties set was issued in 1959 by Baker's Cocoa. They are much more difficult to find. In 1963, Wheaties did issue a set of flexible plates with adhesive backing. The finish on those is a beaded, reflectorized surface. From 1968-1990, Honeycombs issued sets of the 50 states. They have rolled edges, and according to Jeff Minard, ALPCA #495, they were manufactured by the Green Duck Company of Hernando, Mississippi. In 1977, he and Roy Carson, ALPCA #17 toured the plant. Jeff also notes that as a result the Nevada plate for 1978 was ROY 496. (They goofed on the number part.)

The Maharajah Plate

    As a bonus plate for those purchasing all 3 foreign sets at once, a so called Maharajah plate was sent to the buyers. With the addition of the Maharajah plate, there are a total of 129 plates in the 1953-4 sets.

Further General Mills Information

    General Mills had very little information on the plates, when I wrote them in 1996, except for a June, 1953 article from the The Modern Mill Wheel, an internal house newsletter. It does provide some interesting information on design. Recently, I learned that the manufacturer was J.L. Clark Mfg. out of Rockford, Illinois.

The Ads

    Below are listed some links to Xeroxed (black and white) copies of back of the box ads and a newspaper ad of the time.