Jonathan Lifschutz, 50, said he obtained plates bearing the last name of President-elect Barack Obama after the then-Democratic candidate won the South Carolina primary Jan. 26, the New York Post reported Monday.

However, he said he soon was forced to remove the plates from his Saab after thieves repeatedly tried to pry them from his car. Lifschutz said he once caught a man in the act of trying to steal his license plates.

"Those plates will probably, at some point, become a collector's item -- in someone else's house," Lifschutz joked. "I decided that they will best be preserved if I took them off and just carried them in the car."