This is the steed which got me from Fairmont, WV to Peoria IL  A 1999 Yellow Triumph Tiger.  A sport-tourer that does look like some kind of bike on steroids ;-)  As you can see, I have plenty of storage space for plates, but still, I had to be choosy with both of what I decided to bring and what I acquired.  Photo taken outside of Webb's Antique Mall in Centerville IN, the largest of its kind I've ever been to.  Even with over 500 booths, there weren't any plates worth buying.  There never are, at Antique Malls, it seems.

Tuesday: the parking lot meet

That's me, a real Tiger Dude!

Here is am, in the parking lot of the Peoria Civic Center, the site of our convention.  I came up with Vance Fulkerson who rode a grey Softail Harley.  Travelling 600 miles on a bike, from West Virginia with a load of plates was no small feat!  For obvious reasons I brought, and collect a lot of motorcycle plates. The parking lot meet as we call it, happens the day before the meeting hall opens on Wed.  It is an important activity because it is the first chance we get to see what the others have brought.  Consequently much trading goes on, and I probably scored my best finds that day, which included some more 1967 m/c plates for my display.  Here are a few shots.  Click on the images to get a better look. Leroy Troyer's Trailer John Ptak of Minesota Paul Kovalski's plates Danny Kinzle of Missouri The Mackeys, of Kentucky

The Action

Here I am at my table, with two Tiger plates I found.   Notice the guy in the Red Jumpsuit in the background.  That's Don Merill,  our convention chairman who finds us a meeting hall each year and makes a lot of this happen.  Red is his status symbol - either that or his favorite color.

One thing I noticed on the trading floor were much higher asking prices for a lot of stuff.  There was a beautiful 1910 porcelain WV plate with a $5000 price tag.  Gorgeous to look at, but I think most of us cannot afford to spend that kind of money.  I'm not sure if eBay has had any effect on the higher prices in general but it wouldn't suprise me.  I even picked out a plate form someone's tradebox thinking it was $7.00 and was told sternly by the seller that was a $700 plate.  I'm not kidding!  And there were a lot of interesting foreign plates on another table, which would have been a lot more interesting in many cases if I could move the decimal one place to the left in the asking price.  I even got caught by all this mania.  I bought a tiger sample plate for $25 from another collector's table when he wasn't there.  $25 seemed like a fair price for a graphic sample, and the owner of the table wasn't there so the lady next door took my money.  Well, to my horror I learned the collector wanted $250, not $25!  Incredible.  Being a good tiger, I returned the plate of course because it was sold in error, but the whole experience did leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

A few plates were stolen on the floor Friday morning.  The high prices clearly marked on many of these plates makes thievery kind of inevitable especially given the lax security and great amount of trust we ALPCA members generally place in one another.  The thief was almost caught, and probably was a guest who got in easily.  At any rate, one plate did disappear from my table.  It was a 1957 Nfld cycle plate #131, g-vg condition w/ nice paint but some damage around the bolt-holes.  If anyone is offered this plate in a transaction, please contact me.  I would like to have the plate back, no questions asked.  Other collectors lost much more vaulable plates than I did, but still, I feel that I shouldn't have to worry about my table when I'm walking the floor.

The Displays

Bruce Lobay's Display The first years from each province.  Impressive, however  some of these plates are fakes, such as the first 3 PEI  and the '24 & '26 Yukon. Two extremely rare NWT plates Winnipeg Horseless Carraige Run 1896-1907.  Plates are made of plastic are completely bogus, as they do not even replicate anything that was issued. I won first prize  in the Non-passenger Category with my 1967 one per state m/c run, quite to my suprise.   Dave Steckley's Ontario PCV/Trailer Runs Not an official entry - but an impressive display of foreign plates from  the PL8S Magazine - Drew Steitz Ketucky County Run.

Here I am at the Illinois/Indiana Border.  As you can see the land is flat, and boring.  Around Indianapolis the sky turned very black, uh oh things could get very ugly in a hurry.   So I pulled unter a bridge just in time and waited out the storm for about an hour.  So scary, I didn't get a picture.  When I got home, I put just over 1200 miles on the Tiger for the entire trip, and yes, I did manage to get everything that I picked up at the convention home on my bike.