Verona, Take Three: April 12, 2008

By this point, I seem to be intimately acquainted with the springtime plate meet in Verona, Virginia: I've shown up at it for the last three years in a row. While it's not my favorite regional meet (the Annandale event during the fluke time Rich Dragon showed up probably bears that honor) nor the closest (and I often find myself spending half the time separating the wheat from the chaff), I always find something there!

Lately, my experiences have alternated between filling in my 1985 run and filling in my West Virginia collection on an either/or basis. This time the former scenario held true, with the plates at right all finding their way into my possession as interesting collection additions by the time I left the room. None filled in any holes, however.

Taking a clue from last time, I prominently set up shop on a table; spreading out my better trading stock for display and (occasionally) making myself visible in the bargain. It didn't translate into sales, however: One person seemed to think that I was only accepting trade offers (in spite of the tags prominently stuck on the back of each...er, tag), while another seemed to think that the plates I had spread out for better visibility were for display only. All in all, this was the first meet in quite a while in which I didn't sell or trade away a single plate.

At this meet, I decided to spice things up a bit by preparing a display. Titled "West Virginia Odds and Sods," it essentially consisted of a few unusual plates (such as my WD Demo Only/Towing Only pair and several with extremely coincidental serials), accompanied by anecdotal notes and mounted on a piece of plywood that I had to saw a foot short to squeeze into my car. Although it didn't win any awards, it did attract a few eyeballs and bits of conversation. In addition, I had fun putting it together and taking it along...when the thumbtacks weren't falling off, that is!

Since I have an interest in coins as well as license plates, I used the opportunity to pay for table fees and "tin" acquisitions with "golden" dollars and a number of spare Susan B. Anthonies I was tired of carrying around. No one thought they were quarters, although one person thought they were halves until I pointed out the difference!

The usual bunch of people were there: Josh Husiar, Joe Sallmen, and myself from West Virginia; Kenny O'Dell from North Carolina, and quite a few others for good measure. One person (probably the closest in age to myself) took it upon himself to remind me that he had started an ALPCA group on the News Corporation-run social networking hotspot of MySpace. I thanked him though I mentioned that "I wasn't on that website," to which the response was "Oh, I thought you were!" I guess he didn't read my Web Journal!

The hall seemed a bit emptier than it was in previous years, and everyone started packing up and moving out around lunchtime. Some even filtered out before the donation auction got under way...which for my purposes was just as well, since it reduced the competition involved. (I doubt I would have gotten my hands on this goodie...reflective of both my major and my initials...if this had been a busier day!) As the auction announcer fumbled through plates without even holding them upright for benefit of the audience to see, I began to wish I had earlier volunteered for the task in question myself. As the room cleared, I eventually followed suit myself, and drove the 170 miles home with the reassuring sound of clattering metal in my ear.

Given the tapered-off attendance noticeable this day (plus a poll I saw ages ago on the pages of licenseplates.cc showing that meet-goers make up the exception to the rule), I sometimes wonder if the 8:00 am scheduling of this and seemingly every other meet does more harm than good. The so-called "early-rise old geezer flea market" mentality may make sense for a flea market with no formal opening time, but it has no point for an organized event like a plate meet; especially if it's all over with four hours later. For someone like myself, an early starting time means that you're forced either to hit twisty roads with lots of fog around 5:30 in the morning, or go up the day before and spend the night there. Wouldn't it be nice to have a leisurely noon-to-four meet sometime with time left over before and after? Heck, I'd probably even find a scheduling of 8:00 pm to midnight more comfortable.

Scheduling complications can only put so much of a damper on my mood, however. Any excuse to get plates can't be that bad!

The Network License Plates The Idle Pen

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©2008 Andrew Turnbull.
Last update May 25, 2008 (photo added).