 |
| As cars age, the number of stickers increases. Photos, Examples and Counter-Examples, by Salt Water New England |
Stickers add personalization and even a bit of functionality to a car.
On a primary car, the norm is often to show one or two low-key stickers, ideally in one of the back windows (without obscuring vision), plus any necessary parking/beach pass stickers. Typically these stickers include prep schools and colleges (which also prevent you getting towed while you are visiting), towns, clubs/yacht club burgees, flags, and favorite conservation groups.
For some people, stickers provide their perfect overlap of bragging and utility. They need their OSV (Oversand Permit) or Town of Nantucket Beach Permit, after all, and they just haven't gotten around to scraping off the last few years of them.
Some stickers are often preferable to none. They are surprisingly useful for striking up conversations, and also identifying your car. They make parking lots more interesting. I enjoy recognizing some stickers on other cars as I walk by.
When traveling, one soon realizes that the density of certain stickers, such as from one's alma mater, conveys how close or far one is from the institution, both geographically and culturally. A single sighting a thousand miles away is always fun, while a dozen or more on I-95 during homecoming or graduation weekends is to be expected. Of course when visiting the campus the pings come as quickly as a Geiger counter at Maine Yankee (kidding).
Five can be the upper limit no matter how many tuitions and dues you are paying.
Clothing brands, monograms (except for code flags), and dog and cat breeds might best be avoided. And of course bumper stickers are very tricky to do well.
And tangentially, when getting a new car, a good habit is to get the dealer to remove any of their advertising. This request is received much more graciously than the same request made at Ralph Lauren.
.JPG)
