Jim & Charlotte Russ - License Plate Revelations Column

Jim Russ is from a small coal mining community in West Virginia and has had an interest in automobilia since childhood. While pastoring two churches, he founded Jim’s Old PL8s as a small-scale hobby business. Over the years it grew and has really flourished since his retirement.

His wife, Charlotte, is also quite involved in the sales, restoration, and clerical side of the business. Today about 75% of their business is sales and 25% restorations.
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JimsOldPl8s.com or Jim@JimsOldPL8s.com
Some of Jim and Charlotte's Articles:  
​License Plate Revelations Column
How Did We Get Started?!?
Issue #14 Jan/Feb 2021
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The most frequent question Jim and Charlotte get from customers and spectators at car shows and swap meets is, “How did you get started doing this?” Jim and his brothers were all shade-tree mechanics as teenagers and young adults, and that carried over into their career choices. All of them became involved in auto parts – whether it be sales, management of stores or ownership of stores. 

​Jim’s interest in collecting license plates was inspired by his older brother, who gave him a few plates early on. As a teenager, Jim’s first car was a 1950 Chevrolet, so it just seemed natural to buy one in the early 1980s to restore. Once the car was restored, Jim began to search for a 1950 vintage license plate to register to his car. He finally found two of them at a junkyard about 50 miles from home. Later, when he attended local car shows, inevitably someone would ask him where he got his license plate. He mentioned that he had an extra one that he would be willing to sell, and the rest is history