Featured is a wonderful Vintage Chauffeur License Pin.
- Beginning in the early 20th century, qualified drivers for taxi cabs or other paid car services were issued a small metal license called a chauffeur badge.
- The word “chauffeur” comes from the French word for “stoker,” since the earliest automobiles utilized steam-powered engines, requiring the driver to stoke the coal fire during the engine’s operation.
- Though associated with luxury vehicles today, chauffeur licenses were required for all paid passenger-vehicle drivers, whether they were behind the wheel of a sleek limousine or a bulky city bus.
- By the early 1950s, paper licenses had replaced badges, which were more expensive to produce.
- The rarest, most collectible chauffeur badges come from smaller states with fewer taxi operators, rather than those with metropolitan hubs like New York or California.
