Good catch, Steve! But that's not the only episode with the "DBZ" license plate -- it's in all of the later episodes, although there aren't many occasions where we see it clearly. For some reason, it changed in the ABC series (NBC kept custody of Columbo's old license number?) But, for me, Columbo's license plate will always be 044 APD. It is my own, real plate number.:+1:

I think I'm going to have to borrow your idea and make that my personalized plate number. :grinning:

I know it's probably an ABC/NBC thing like you said, but I have my own headcannon reason for the change.

After running and gunning his motor trying to get ahead of the Ilkon Tak while trying to solve the murder of Vincent Pauley and solve the issue of the guns, Columbo blew his head gasket and being an underpaid (as he states in CANDIDATE FOR CRIME) police officer, he couldn't afford to get his car fixed. So he drove his wife's car (it's nothing special, just for transportation) to work while saving up for a new (used?) motor. Having sat for so long, his plates expired and were then issued to someone else so he was issued a new number.

This is all based on me not knowing how license plate issuance worked in California in the late 70s and 80s.

Fun posts, Steve and Verdammt! I like your theory. Here is a shot from "Murder, Smoke & Shadows," and a high-contrast closeup of "448 DBZ".

Ted how were u able to upload those pictures

Steve, I uploaded them to Imgur, https://imgur.com/ . Then, from the Imgur page for the image, I copy/pasted what is called the "BBCode" for the image, into my Forum post.

As you may know, Imgur is a free image-sharing site. You can create a free account and sign into it, but I think this also works if you upload an image without signing-in.

Once you upload your image (it's easy), you'll have its URL but what you want instead, to copy/paste into your Forum message, is what's called the BBCode. You get that by hovering over your image in Imgur after uploading, then in the little pop-up menu, look for the little down-arrow (V), to see several choices. Click on "Get share links," which gets you the "Share options" screen, where you'll see 4 choices including the BBCode. Click "Copy" next to the BBCode, then paste that into your Forum message.

You can also use Imgur to upload a custom avatar for your Forum posts. But, for your avatar, for some reason, you want to copy/paste the uploaded image's URL instead of its bbc code. (They're similar, but with some differences.)

I hope that helps -- it's pretty intuitive once you are in Imgur, except maybe for knowing to hover over your uploaded image to get to the "V" arrow for the Share options.

I used to use a similar, free service called Photobucket, which is still around if you want to check it out, but Imgur seems to be the most thriving platform for this now.

I recommend clicking the Preview button on your post, when you're adding images, to see if you've got it right -- but it's not difficult. The screenshot I uploaded was 720 pixels wide, but I'd say about 300-600 is enough. You don't want it too huge.