The province started registering vehicles as early as 1904.  It was up to the owner to make up markers to display the registration number assigned.  Leather, metal numbers and wood were often the materials used.  The letters "BC" appear on the majority of these owner-provided plates.  BC was rather late mandating officially provided plates.  By 1912, legislation was passed to mandate annual registration beginning in 1913, when the province began issuing the license plates, made of porcelain.

At some point, the city of Victoria also required vehicles to be licensed.  The city provided a small porcelain plate, black on white, that was undated.  It is not clear when this plate was issued, or if had to be used in conjunction with the BC plates, or instead of, depending on where the car travelled.  More research is needed on this particular plate; only about 3 are known  making it undoubtedly very rare today.

• The first official issue was 1913.  Before that plates were provided by the owner.
• The '13 plate shares the same design as the '11 Ont, '11 Man & '12 Alta.
• A post-war metal shortage resulted in the issue of some cardboard temporary plates in 1919.
• On current plates, a small sticker indicating the day of the month of expiry is placed in the center.
• Only the current graphic plate issued since 1987 is valid.

Two types of the '52 base. 
The latter without the date was most likely issued in '53 or '54.

• 1958: 100th Anniversary of entry into Confederation (1858)

• From 1932-45 a preceding dash was used if the number was less than 5 digits.
• Conventionally, the Premier received the lowest number plate.  When they were all numeric, this would be '1' and when they went Alpha-Numeric in 1970, AAA-001.

• In 1953 and 1954, annual plates were issued for most non-passenger types.
• From 1970 onwards, anything that didn't follow an ABC-123 format was non-passenger.

Notice the absence of a maple leaf on this Commercial plate.
The tab for '53 even had an indent to allow for the last 'A' in 'COLUMBIA' !

Current motorcycle plate

Special Issues

	The plate went either below the front or rear license plate, but did not replace it.  Celebrated BC's Centennial, as the normal license plate did not.
	The vanity base-plate is different from the normal passenger plate.  Oddly enough this was BC's first graphic plate as it came out before the flag graphic, in the early 80s.
	This officially issued booster plate issued in 1992 commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Canada Highway linking BC, Yukon and Alaska.  This was quite a feat in 1942 when major road construction up North was almost unheard of.    Also issued for Yukon & Alaska.
	This APEC issue was only available to participants in the APEC summit, Nov. 19-25 1997, and was only valid during that time period. The top one was used only by Police Cars in the motorcade, whereas all other vehicles involved with the APEC Summit were issued the Federal plate below.  The latter were issued with and without the maple leaves.

Links:

• Elsewhere on this site: Stickers on plates 1970-date,  Vehicle Registration Figures.
• Dan Howlett has a good page on the current BC plates. Here he tells you how they were issued and more than you'd ever want to know about the current plates.
• The motor vehicle registration today is handled by the ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia). They play both the role of Registrar of Motor Vehicles and insurance agent.