Bumper Bytes

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
…my wife and I live in a home here in Central Florida that was built in 1925…as most older homes in Florida, it is raised off the ground to allow for air circulation for cooling…when we bought it, I decided to crawl under it and see what ‘treasures’ I could find!…a lot of contractor trash, […] read more
With two shots in my arm and the unmitigated support of my wife and our pups, I arose yesterday at 4:00 am and headed to the Tampa airport for a 6:00 am flight to Charlotte, where I rented a car and drove to Easley, SC to visit with our new GAP license plate friend, Wanda […] read more
In our role as the Mortician of Motoring Memories, there is no limit to the effort to which we will go to acquire interesting and collectible license plates for our friends and customers! For example, while scanning ads for ‘in person only’ auctions (our favorites because they’re usually small, in remote locations, and in this crazy Covid time, easy to […] read more