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MOULTON, IOWA -- For many, license plates have been around as long as we can remember, but plates in Iowa have a long history, with different stamps, stickers and materials throughout the years. One Heartland man has the plates to show it all, and he's been collecting them for longer than he can remember.

"How I got started was I ran across an old fellow one time who was tearing down an old garage and had all the 20's plates in the garage," said Tracey Corder, of Moulton, Iowa said. "I said, what are you going to do with all those? And he said throw them in the junk pile, so I said, wait until I get my hammer and I'll relieve you of them."

Corder has been collecting ever since. From 1904 to 2004, Tracey has collected 100 years of plates, including stickers from 1943 and 1944 when no plates were issued to save metal for the war effort.

License plates in Iowa have a long history. Vehicle registration was not a law until 1904 and for the first few years, license plates were not standardized. The state gave each car owner a number, and it was the owner's responsibility to display the number somehow somewhere on the vehicle.

In 1911, plates began to be issued to be more uniform, but they still experienced many changes throughout the years. In 1922, the plates started having county numbers stamped on them. The numbers were based on population and would change from year to year. Then, in 1927, Iowa decided to alphabetically number the counties and assign numbers that way. Those assigned numbers remained until 1979 when stickers began to be used instead. Now, counties appear at the bottom of each plate.

Iowa plates also once had a slogan stamped on them, but this only lasted a few years. Beginning in 1953 "The Corn State" was added to plates and remained until 1955. There has not been a slogan added since.

Many collectors across the country have amassed old license plates, but Corder's collection is unique for one quality; they are all from the same county.

"That makes it more a rarity, keeping it all in one county, so that's where I stopped was Appanoose County," he said.

Many of the plates were donated or given to him by friends or strangers, but several of them needed to be tracked down. So which was the hardest to find?

"Year 28 was the hardest to come by," Corder said, referring to 1928. "Fellow from Oklahoma came here and said he had a pair -- you don't usually find an Iowa plate in Oklahoma!"

Corder said he has no idea how much his collection is worth, as he's never had it appraised, but he's seen single plates sell for over $300.

He said he thinks the collection is complete, but his grandson, who has helped Corder track down some of the plates and stickers throughout the years, said he may take on the task of adding to the collection down the road.