Bumper Bytes

Lansing, Michigan, here we come!…Hatteras (our 15-year old grandson) and I have loaded the Penske truck this year with about 3,000 plates and will depart for the annual ALPCA plate convention in the morning…the meet begins on Wednesday morning and runs through Saturday…he’s hoping we sell enough plates to make a down payment on a […] read more
Take a look at Joey Christenson’s amazing classic!…it is a fiberglass replica of a 1944 VW type 82 or kubelwagen….it was built by Intermeccanica out of Canada in 2000…they are also well known for their Porsche speedster replicas…Joey advises it has only 2200 kilometers on it and uses a 67 Beetle chassis and drivetrain….he wanted an […] read more
On a recent New England license plate shopping sleigh ride, we found some very nice plates in Waldoboro, Maine and Stratton, Vermont…it was 14 degrees during our Maine hunt, warming up to 35 degrees in Vermont…so we stopped on Sunday morning to make a contribution into the church’s collection ‘plate’!…Santa’s ‘making a list’!! read more
Over the years we’ve been fortunate to have had a number of very nice collections of license plates offered to us…and recently a collection with real ‘local color’ was made available to GAP…the Johnston brothers, Philip and Henry, now living in Thomaston, GA contacted us to review about 50 plates that had hung in a […] read more
After an 1,850 mile drive across our beautiful country just before the Fourth of July Weekend, the Plate Princess and I arrived in Denver, Colorado for the 2023 Automobile License Plate Collectors’ International Convention…another 450 or so collectors joined us for an enjoyable four day meet…lots of plates to buy, sell, or trade, and plenty of […] read more
At the 2023 ALPCA license plate convention in Denver this year, our friend, Chris Fretta, found a real treasure…in the early 1900s,  license plates were made with steel bases covered with porcelain to assure their long life…one of the most well-known manufacturers was the Ingram-Richardson Manufacturing Company…as seen on the 1915 California plate’s backside, their company […] read more
Patience is a virtue, but sometimes good luck plays a role as well…at the 2023 ALPCA convention in Denver this week, we were happy to meet up with Eric Tanner, the current Editor of PLATES magazine (yes, we have our own license plate collectors’ magazine!)…in previous issues, Eric had done a few articles mentioning the DC license […] read more
With a beautiful morning sunrise as my guide, east-bound to Vero Beach was a pleasant journey, for sure…particularly as a complete collection of 150 Wisconsin license plates awaited my arrival at the home of Jack Lucas, former owner and barkeep of the Village Pump in Solon Springs, Wisconsin…while we can’t attest to the cuisine at […] read more
…we made it!!…what’s another 750 mile joy ride with the Plate Princess to wheel and deal more license plates?!…the annual ALPCA license plate collectors convention this year is in Hampton, VA…so we loaded up about 10,000 license plates in Lakeland Sunday morning and made it here in time for dinner last night!…I keep reminding her […] read more
In early April, as Spring was springing and we were shaking off some of the Covid-crazies, we received an email from Cynthia Kindgren in Rockford, Illinois…she asked if we’d be interested in her recently-deceased brother’s collection of taxi cab license plates…over the years we’ve had several folks describe their available collections to us, including military, […] read more
Over the years we’ve been fortunate to ‘electronically’ meet some very nice plate collectors around the world…one such gentleman is Margus K., President of the Official Corvette Club of Estonia!…not only does Margus love Corvettes, he is an avid plate enthusiast as well…just witness his garage wall in Estonia!…in these troubling times Margus can still […] read more
This past week the Plate Princess and I traveled to Hershey, Pennsylvania to stroll through some of the 5,500 acres of the Hershey Fairgrounds property to enjoy the Classic Car Show and the Giant Automobile Parts Flea Market…she lasted about four hours worth of license plate scrounging, which is about what it took for us […] read more