Photo by Steven Silver Sitting: Jacques Cyr, Jon Upton, Rob Berman, Emma (Rob's Daugther), Gary Doherty, Sam Samis Standing: Arnie Lukas, ?, Don Goodfellow, Paul Cafarella, John Hayes, Ken Murdoch, Jack Lammert, ??, Mike DeVouge, Joe Sallmen (Host)

Your host, Joe "Tiger" Sallmen, came from Fairmont West Virginia.  Ottawa is my hometown, but I am currently living in West Virginia, so it was quite the long drive up.

With help from Jon Upton and Gary Doherty, we had the tables set up the Friday night before the meet.  We had a much better venue than last year, which was in a cramped room at a nearby community center.  This high school gymnasium was much better.  We could easily have handled twice the attendance that what he had last year and still have room to spare.  Unfortunately we didn't get it.

The meet started bright and early at 8:00am.  The attendance was a few shy from last year - a disappointment really - of course it could have felt that way because we had a much larger meeting hall.  The weather was rather dreary so it's a good thing we had lots of indoor space.  There was a carwash going on at the School that same morning - I have to wonder how brisk their business was.

The Displays

Despite the size of our met, we did have some interesting displays. Jon Upton put together a cute tongue-in-cheek display titled "Close But no Cigar", since he was frustrated in finding plates that were basically one off from being a perfect repeater.  For example 77-772 and 6166.  Sam Samis had a small display featuring a number of Ontario graphic plates with his name (you can see this in the group photo).  From last year, we had on display a tribute to Jeff Berman (ALPCA #337) a well-known Canadian collector who had obsessive collecting habits, and a provincial centennial run of motorcycle plates put together by your host.  These two displays were found at the registration booth.

Jon Upton with his "Close but no Cigar" display

Emma in front of a Canadian motorcycle exhibit and a tribute to Jeff Berman

The Trading

As expected, the trading was brisk, with some interesting plates changing hands.  I managed to trade my Canadian plates fairly well, but I found foreign ones rather difficult to move.  A keen collector of foreign plates, a diplomat who resides locally here in Ottawa couldn't make it this weekend.  We had an unexpected visitor, a Lion, who is the mascot from Laurentian High.  We weren't sure if he was interested in collecting but hopefully he left the meet, more inspired.  Maybe he'll start collecting Lion-related plates, the way I collect Tiger-related ones.
 

Gary and Sam at Gary's Table

Gary meets the Lion.

John Hayes' table. Steven Silver, the photographer, far left.

Looking ahead....

This turned out to be the last meet hosted in Ottawa.  Living so far away, in West Virginia makes things difficult, and no one seemed willing to pick up the ball.  2 years later, we had a much better meet in Acton Ontario that brought about twice as many collectors.  So, the cards are down on the table, there is no question that is going to be the future for Ontario meets.

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Page updated May 5, 2003