Recently, I registered our newly restored 1957 Volkswagen. I took the original title to the court house, paid for registration and tags, and asked that the original title be returned to me. They wrote "return origianl title to owner" and put my mailing address after that. This was in big letters diagonally across the title application.

Well, today the new title came, but no original.
Those old titles are an important part of the history of an antique car. Most collectors keep them forever.

A quick call to Nashville reached a supervisor who said it was probably too late. I've registered antique motor scooters before, and I know the proceedure. They copy the information from the original to the new title and drop the old one into a shredder.

But my title must have gotten into the hands of a clerk who wasn't paying much attention. Whoever it was never noticed the "return" message on the title application. They also piled up old titles and never got around to going to the shredder. The supervisor found the title and it is on the way. I hope she chewed out the inefficienct clerk, but maybe I should be glad that someone wasn't doing their job by the book.
Howard