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Collecting Ontario licence plates for 40 years
THE
BACK
BUMPER
2CENTS ARCHIVES
First started as "My 2 Cents" in 1997, I have written posts numbering into the hundreds. New posts arrive continually. Find an article by clicking the tag cloud below, or selecting a category, doing a search (see magnifying glass below on the right), or just scroll down to see the articles in chronological order.
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Grimsby '24
It took four weeks to find the time to write this article. If you're a regular reader, I hope you appreciate it. I was in perpetual...
Nov 20, 2024
246 views
1 comment
New Grimsby Award in '24
This year at the Grimsby swap meet, we’re adding an award, but the finished products emerged in a roundabout way. Don Goodfellow had a...
Oct 4, 2024
72 views
0 comments
Cluckin' and Quackin' in Grimsby
I had been looking forward to the 2023 edition of Grimsby for a long time. I was thrilled with how the 2022 meet turned out at its new...
Oct 24, 2023
251 views
0 comments
Making the 2023 Ontario Souvenir Plates
It was a summer afternoon in 2022: I found myself at the town park in sleepy Rossmore, Ontario, swapping plates with Dave Steckley and...
Apr 2, 2023
150 views
1 comment
The Grass is Greener in Grassie
The 2022 edition of Grimsby was always going to be unlike any of its previous installments. It had been three years since the last meet...
Nov 11, 2022
312 views
0 comments
Driving Nowhere
It’s 6:55 PM on the last Friday night in October. At this moment, I’d be stopping for gas somewhere outside of Trenton. The air would be...
Oct 30, 2021
90 views
0 comments
Grimsby Growth
I’m exhausted! What a meet. Where do I start? And, as I’ll ponder later on, where do we go from here? My kids are grown-up enough that I...
Oct 31, 2019
354 views
1 comment
A blizzard of plates
No two Grimsby swap meets are the same. Each journey always leaves something unique by which I remember it. There was 2009, when a...
Nov 3, 2018
329 views
0 comments
Collectin' one plate at a time
I was waiting at the curb with my overnight bag and a small cardboard box. My skinny house stood warmly behind me, its light shining out...
Oct 30, 2017
252 views
0 comments
The secret's out
Well, that didn’t take long. I was in front of my computer on this snowy, Sunday morning, coffee in hand, when I hit my eBay bookmark as...
Dec 19, 2016
194 views
0 comments
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November 2016 has been a tough month for many members of ALPCA. Long-time member and great guy Dave Kuehn, a guru of all things...
Nov 17, 2016
93 views
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The family Grimsby
The times, they are a-changing… especially in Ontario, for a small group of close-knit people who band together every six months to...
Nov 1, 2016
158 views
0 comments
The Grimsby shuffle
Raring to go. That’s how I’ve been this fall. The Jays are in the postseason, the weather has been halfway warm, and I’d been looking...
Oct 25, 2015
51 views
0 comments
G-R-I-M-S-B-Y spells relief
I’ve got it figured out. That is: Why the fall plate meet in #Grimsby feels different from the spring meet in Acton. I was e-mailing a...
Oct 29, 2014
57 views
0 comments
Long time coming
Grimsby 2013 was a long-awaited event that was a year-and-a-half in the making—for me, anyway. You may wonder: How can an annual event be...
Oct 29, 2013
52 views
0 comments
Why I skipped Grimsby
By now, many of my faithful readers know that I wasn’t able to go to the fall Tinchasers’ swap meet in Grimsby. It was an unfortunate...
Nov 12, 2012
32 views
0 comments
You had to be there
I made the six-hour drive from home to the Niagara region on the last Friday in October. Not for the wine, and not for the fruit, but for...
Nov 5, 2011
48 views
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Grim pickings
The annual Tinchaser’s license plate swap meet in Grimsby is basically the event that marks the putting of my hobby to bed for the...
Nov 2, 2010
60 views
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Destination super
October is a wonderful month because it brings three important occasions—Thanksgiving, Halloween, and the annual Tinchasers’ Plate Meet....
Oct 29, 2009
64 views
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Grim Reaper (the Grimsby debut)
This year, the fall Tinchasers’ license plate swap meet changed locations slightly, from St. Catharines to nearby #Grimsby, about 20 km...
Oct 31, 2008
65 views
0 comments
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