You probably think you know all of the licence plates available in Michigan - the standard blue-on-white Pure Michigan plate, or the Mackinac Bridge plate or the green Splendor plate. You likely also know specialty plates like for the state's colleges or fundraising plates.

But you may have never seen these extremely rare Michigan Native American tribe licence plates.

There are three different native american tribes that issue their own licence plates that are recognized by the state of Michigan.

Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Tribe

Based near L'Anse the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa have been issuing their own plates since at least 1977. The plate shown above is from the Keweenaw Bay tribe. Occasionally their license plates show up for sale on Ebay.

Bay Mills Indian Community

Bay Mills is west of Sault Ste. Marie has began issuing plates in 2003. This unique collector plate showed up for sale on Ebay recently.

bay mills license plate
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Saginaw Chippewa

The most recent tribe to issue their own licence plates is the Saginaw Chippewa. The Mount Pleasant based tribe began thier own plates in 2016. An example of their plate can be seen here on the World License Plate website.

If you are hoping to sport one of these plates on your car, you're likely out of luck. Though they're recognized by the state of Michigan, they're not issued by the Secretary of State and only issued by the respective tribes for tribal members as laid out in these motor vehicle license and registration rules laid out by the Bay Mills Indian Community.

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