Three decades, same color New Jersey hasn’t had a new plate design in nearly 30 years, when the state rolled out the current Goldfinch yellow plates with black lettering in 1992.

NJ license plate history New Jersey has a long history of different license plates. The first official state-issued plate came out in 1908. In 1959, the words "GARDEN STATE" were first included on ...

Discovering New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, Dawson said, was a bit like going home again. “If you get deep enough in the woods down here, it’s not that much different,” he said.