Help with Taxi wall plaque? License plate?

[cbotw27]

Do you know what this is? It's cast brass. I was thinking maybe it was a wall plaque for a street or taxi station number. Seems to thick for a license plate and it is cast brass not stamped. Any help would be much appreciated.

[eoma689485]

It might be a Taxi Cab Medallion, they were screwed to the hood of the car, or where required, to prove that the cab was legal, it was the Cabbies license to operate and were purchased from the city, they were numbered as the number of cabs in most major cities were limited.

[mudshark61369]

@cbotw27,

I would say you have a Taxi medallion that predates all metal automobile bodies.  I noticed the Countersink holes in the plaque which indicates it took wood screws which would not have been used after all steel auto bodies with bumpers became the standard by 1918.

    It is possible the medallion/plaque is from the very late 1800s to the early 1900s, when horse drawn carriages or early wood auto bodies were most common. It probably came from a larger city, where the number of taxis was tightly regulated and mostly used.  Once autos started being made of steal and had bumpers Taxi medallions or plates started being made of steel also.