California YOM (year of manufacture) plates... and keychains

[icebone]

We lucky Californians recently had the YOM (year of manufacture) plate program extended through 1980. This essentially means that for a vehicle originally produced <1980, you can find a pair of original black or blue plates (1970 onward is blue) on eBay or wherever, get a correct year sticker matching your car’s production date, and actually get those plates registered to your car.

eBay is alive with listings for matched sets of old plates for this reason.

I’m working a deal on a 1971, and am interested if anyone here has figured out what number sequence corresponds to that year. Cali goes sequential, so there is some range (eg, plates starting with, say, 100 to 250) that is “correct” for 1971, but I’ve searched and asked around and can’t find it.

Also — kind of random — but does anyone know what sort of keychains were commonly used / provided by dealers at the time? My old Alfa had a leather one with a little enamel circle on it.

Cheers
Icebone

[icebone]

Some additional snooping and it looks like “D” plates were issued in 1971. Thus, NNN DXX, where N are digits, XX are letters, and D is... D.

[Alan Smithee]

Thanks for the info...I took advantage of the program when I brought my 1969 SL into CA ~7 years ago and found some correct 'Z' sequence black plates.  I wasn't aware that the program had successfully extended to include blue plates.

'D' is indeed correct for 1971...my family had a 1971 Chevy purchased new in San Diego with the sequence 'DKE'.