Now we come to the former Soviet Union (FSU) countries. When the various countries gained independence at the collapse of the Soviet Union, all re-plated with their own distinct styles between 1992 and 1996. Nearly all these countries suffered from an excess of mint unused plates going straight from the factory in Germany to collectors in Germany. These were then sold on as the genuine article. Just about all the mint first series after independence plates in collections are samples and they have never been to the country they represent. About half of the samples are of test designs and are wrong, the test design having never been adopted.
There is no such thing as a correct design mint plate that has come from the actual country it is made for as the FSU countries are very strict about not letting any plates out of their hands.
Moral: Mint German made FSU plates are always samples and often of the wrong design.
Armenia.
There are a few diplomatic and state owned vehicle samples and many private vehicle samples in collections. They all look reasonably correct (Armenia does not seem to have had any rejected test designs) but some of them have the wrong security hologram on them and many have incorrect spacing of the letters and numerals. There are a few that have no security hologram at all and a few with smaller than normal letters. There may be about 50 Armenian samples in total out there in collector land. This photo is of just a few of them.
The easy way to tell if it is an unused sample is from looking at the back of the plate. Some sellers have put holes in the plates and the holes look used.
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