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 plate from the car (a 1914 Maxwell) of the first Secret Service agent assigned to guard a President, Woodrow Wilson…the Plate Princess and I had bought that plate at an auction in Maine several years ago and treasured it since…while chatting with Eric about it, I looked down and there on his table laid a 1931 Alaska passenger plate (455), a plate I had been looking for for 15 years to replace the samp!e 1931 AK plate in my 1931 State and Territory Collection (See ‘Collections’ on the GAP website)….soooo, two grown men spent the next few days negotiating back and forth, and we both came out winners…Eric got the DC plate (and a VT porcelain Temporary plate thrown in) and we got the 1931 AK…as you can see by the number, fewer than 500 of them were ever issued!…out of it all, the Plate Princess got a celebratory Starbucks latte!…keep up the good work, Eric!