Question for those with 1965 Plates

[bobinyelm]

Originally Posted by elmariachi

You can attach any year plate to any year car. I could put 1966 plates on my MBenz if I wanted to.

Jim

Wow!

That's a revelation!

There are some strange stipulations at:
http://www.thebolthole.com/texas/antique.html
regarding YOM (Year of Manufacture) plates that misled me to believe if you use old plates, they must correspond to the year of manufacture of the vehicle concerned.

One of the 1965 plates I bought has some rust spots (I suspect it was a front plate that got some sand pits), but it's 100% readable. Do I need to "restore" and paint it before presenting it to the Tax Office?

If I do "restore" it (I read restoration is acceptable), how close does the white background need to be to the original color and lustre? The original color is not quite "white-white", but its closer to that than any of the off-white spray paints I've been able to find. It's also not glossy, but not quite semi-gloss or satin finish, either.

Are they super picky, or is there some reasonable latitude?

I know we're getting subjective here, but I figure some of you have been through this before!

I found some pairs of unused 1965 plates, but the cheapest ones went for well over $200-a bit rich for my blood after sinking the money in the car itself.

Bob