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Old 25th October 2015, 08:13   #931
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Quote:
Originally Posted by travancore View Post
courtesy: raja1630.tripod

Attachment 1430562

M.K.Thyagaraja Bhagavathar.

Does "RD" stand for Ramanathapuram District ?
Travancore,
RD is Rangoon (Burma) post 1947 and probably around about 1950

Cheers
Cedric
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Old 25th October 2015, 19:45   #932
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Quote:
Originally Posted by karlosdeville View Post
BO 142 MZ is seen on this early Buick Tourer

Attachment 1430153
Early registration numbers in India-ford-model-bo926mz-tbhp.jpg

Here is another BO-xxx-MZ. I think we have seen this before.
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Old 3rd November 2015, 11:24   #933
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Here is an Austin with a "KN" series registration. Have we seen this before?
The couple appear to Parsi, and probably this photo is from India.

Cheers harit
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Early registration numbers in India-kn.jpg  

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Old 4th November 2015, 12:05   #934
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Harit,
I agree that this is probably an Indian registration rather than British from the style and I guess 1920s. I have not seen KN before and it does not appear on my list either.
Most of the original 2 letter codes were from the Madras Presidency. Is that likely for this photo and is there any possible town from the 20s that could have had KN for the code? KU is Kurnool for example.
Wonderful photo.
Cheers
Cedric
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Old 5th November 2015, 12:13   #935
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

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Originally Posted by anjan_c2007 View Post
An early registration number of Sikkim. It was an independent nation till 1975. In 1975, it became an Indian State. The picture is from the period, when it was not a part of India.

Attachment 1347321

(scanned from an old India Today issue)
Quote:
Originally Posted by karlosdeville View Post
I remember this image, it was shot by Homai Vyarawalla. It was displayed as part of an exhibition of her work a couple of years ago.
Seems like they got a lot of Willys with numbers in series back in the day. Like this one:

Quote:
May,52,
Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister, greeting the villagers, when he passed through a village on his way from Darjeeling to Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, which he visited in April, 1952.
Early registration numbers in India-27139.jpg
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Old 9th December 2015, 22:24   #936
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Just for the records-

A MRK registered FIAT 1100 Delight taxi is seen here:

(Click on the pic for enlargement)

Early registration numbers in India-mrk-8789.jpg

MRK would be a 'Sixties Bombay number.

Photo Credits: Wikipedia.org / Greg O'Berine
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Old 9th December 2015, 23:43   #937
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Quote:
Originally Posted by FINTAIL View Post
Just for the records-

A MRK registered FIAT 1100 Delight taxi
is seen here:

MRK would be a 'Sixties Bombay number.

Photo Credits: Wikipedia.org / Greg O'Berine
Actually, IIRC, Mr. Behram Dhabhar had mentioned that MRK was a 70s Padmini series.
And careful- it might as well be a later model taxi sporting just the MRK plates, as was the case with many of the "body-swapped" taxis!

Anyways, Cedric et al, I don't know if this has been shared with you earlier but happened to come across this rather unusual "MS-TR" Madras regn. on an Austin in a late 1940s Tamil movie. All the other cars in this movie sport the 'normal' 3-letter prefix 'MS'-series of the time. 'wondering if there were any inputs you could provide on this?

Early registration numbers in India-vazh.jpg

Early registration numbers in India-vazh1.jpg

Early registration numbers in India-vazh2.jpg

Early registration numbers in India-vazh10.jpg
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Old 10th December 2015, 07:35   #938
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stanher View Post

Anyways, Cedric et al, I don't know if this has been shared with you earlier but happened to come across this rather unusual "MS-TR" Madras regn. on an Austin in a late 1940s Tamil movie. All the other cars in this movie sport the 'normal' 3-letter prefix 'MS'-series of the time. 'wondering if there were any inputs you could provide on this?
Thanks for the MRK bit!

As regards to the MS-TR registration;

It probably means - Madras State / Temporary Registration.

Probably.
Not too sure.
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Old 10th December 2015, 08:59   #939
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Quote:
Originally Posted by FINTAIL View Post
As regards to the MS-TR registration;

It probably means - Madras State / Temporary Registration.

Probably.
Not too sure.
But this Austin would've already been around 20 years old in the late 40s. Temporary registrations would've been issued only for brand new cars then.
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Old 10th December 2015, 10:55   #940
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Stanher,
Very unusual indeed! I agree with Fintail that the logical explanation would be Temporary Registration but they were always 3 letters after 1939 and yellow plates. Dealer plates were red and I am sure these are black plates anyway as red ones show up a sort of grey/black colour in B&W photos.
I have seen many plates from films that are what could be called fantasy plates. Just film props.
There is a Russian language film set in Iraq which has fantasy plates on the vehicles. I advised the propmaster on the plates for the Sex in the city film set in Abu Dhabi so he was certain that the plates could not be confused with genuine ones (his design has letters as well as numerals) and there are several other films that for plate enthusiasts have very strange looking plates on vehicles.
I think I have to say this MS-TR is a movie prop.
Cheers
Cedric
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Old 10th December 2015, 14:06   #941
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Dear Shyam - your memory is commendable. Yes, MRK8473 was registered brand new in 1978. The owner was a Parsi gentleman. He still works as one of the priests in the fire-temple of the Dadar Parsi Colony, which is my home. I see him quite regularly, I'll ask him if he still remembers MRK8473.

Dear Fintail - the other taxi series which had lots of cars were MRR, MRT and MRP.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar
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Old 10th December 2015, 18:27   #942
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Quote:
Originally Posted by sabinesnubbing View Post
Stanher,
Very unusual indeed! I agree with Fintail that the logical explanation would be Temporary Registration but they were always 3 letters after 1939 and yellow plates. Dealer plates were red and I am sure these are black plates anyway as red ones show up a sort of grey/black colour in B&W photos.
I have seen many plates from films that are what could be called fantasy plates. Just film props.
There is a Russian language film set in Iraq which has fantasy plates on the vehicles. I advised the propmaster on the plates for the Sex in the city film set in Abu Dhabi so he was certain that the plates could not be confused with genuine ones (his design has letters as well as numerals) and there are several other films that for plate enthusiasts have very strange looking plates on vehicles.
I think I have to say this MS-TR is a movie prop.
Cheers
Cedric
MS-TR is not a movie prop but a genuine registration series as I have seen at least 2 RC books which had their previous registration numbers mentioned as MS-TR. Of which one car was a 1947 sunbeam later had a TCQ number(TravancoreCochinQuilon).
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Old 10th December 2015, 20:10   #943
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Ajay,
Good man! Have you any thoughts or guesses as to what MS-TR could have indicated or when the MS-TR series was first used? If one of the others you know of was a 1947 car, it puts it as a post partition series. My list has MSL-Z as the post partition 3 letter Madras State series. I realize that there was a gap from 1947 to 1950 and that neither Madras Presidency nor State existed as such so is it possible this is some 'strange' interim 1947-1950 series?
There are so many things we still do not know about the early registrations!
Cheers
Cedric
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Old 11th December 2015, 16:28   #944
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

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Originally Posted by sabinesnubbing View Post
Ajay,
Good man! Have you any thoughts or guesses as to what MS-TR could have indicated or when the MS-TR series was first used? If one of the others you know of was a 1947 car, it puts it as a post partition series. My list has MSL-Z as the post partition 3 letter Madras State series. I realize that there was a gap from 1947 to 1950 and that neither Madras Presidency nor State existed as such so is it possible this is some 'strange' interim 1947-1950 series?
There are so many things we still do not know about the early registrations!
Cheers
Cedric
My guess is TR could be Travancore as this said car was always in Travancore region. Regarding MS, there are people who say it is Madras State, but I think it means something else
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Old 11th December 2015, 20:30   #945
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Re: Early registration numbers in India

Ajay,
From my lists I have that Travancore from the beginning until 1939 was TVR
From 1939 to 1947 it was TCC - Cochin, TCK - Kottayam, TCQ - Quilon, TCT - Trivandrum.
From 1947-50 it was all just TRV
1950 onwards it was TCK - Kottayam, TCR - Trichur, TCT - Travancore

If this is a special Travancore series and we just don't know what the MS is for, there were an awful lot of them if this was 7363.

I wonder (ok this is a wild guess) if this was some strange series for some kind of vehicles that were 'registered' in both Madras State and Travancore?? Like I say, a wild guess.
Cheers
Cedric
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