Our online shop provides over 6000 original vintage doublets for sale.
The actual collection is not for sale.
The Museum of Swiss Bicycle License Plates displays the largest collection of Swiss bicycle license plates. The association uses the proceeds from the sale of duplicates in the online shop to expand the collection, maintain this website, and further research and publication of its history.
With the August 1st Badge in 2023, “Pro Patria” officially declared the bicycle number a Swiss cultural asset. In 2024, our publication was added to the collections of the Swiss Economic Archives and the German National Library. In 2025, the Swiss National Library added our website to its collection of websites relevant to Swiss culture as intellectual cultural asset and listed our publication as a book.
We are likely the first museum in the world to make the “background story” of its collection available comprehensively and multilingually as a podcast series (65 episodes / launch: August 2025).
The history of Swiss bicycle license plates 1892-2011 is only superficially about plates. They are the common thread of a 120-year, unexpectedly emotional journey that takes us through the technical, social, and political developments surrounding bicycles, as well as through the astonishing mechanisms of Swiss federalism. The courts, the army, parliament, and the Federal Council have repeatedly had to grapple with them. In 1927, they led to the “popular uprising.”
The central question “Who invented it?” leads to an odyssey full of myths and surprising twists and turns. Switzerland’s creative diversity remains unique.
Work in progress: We published the first historical findings in 2024. Research continues unabated. Hundreds of original sources can be found in the online archive.
Its rarity, the minted year, the legendary design, and the associated Swissness make this prescribed everyday object a cult object, a unique gift, and a special souvenir: Online Shop
Authenticity Certificate: We confirm that every bicycle license plate is an original which was manufactured on behalf of the Swiss authorities.§
