I'm planning a three-week trip to Europe in April (Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. My grandfather's brother collects license plates, he has hundreds of them. I was hoping to collect a plate from each country as souvenirs for him (he's full-blooded Swiss, both sets of his grandparents immigrated from Switzerland). Is it possible to get license plates? If so, how would I go about getting them?
Go to flea markets.
Jo had a great answer for you. But consider the situation today in most U.S. states: You turn in your license plates to the DMV when you don't transfer them to the next car. You keep a receipt for them in case your insurance company somehow gets a phony/criminal claim against you because they are found on another car. Result: Hard to get current plates in the U.S.
I'm a huge fan of flea markets in foreign countries and plan my trips around the days they're open, but if you can't get to one--they're sometimes on the outskirts or maybe you won't be in town that day--look for antique shops on the lower end of the scale, as in, more like junk shops than the fancy stuff. This is assuming that you want vintage plates, of course.
Thanks for all the quick replies! I hope the timing is right that I can find a flea market. This will be my first overseas trip, looking forward to it!