Annandale, Va. "Spring Thaw" meet, March 4, 2006

While I've had an interest in this esoteric hobby for years, it wasn't until recently that I began to get serious about it. I had joined the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association a couple months earlier as member 10240, and "Tiger" Joe Sallmen, a well-known collector residing in nearby Fairmont, approached me with the suggestion of going to the annual "Spring Thaw" collectors' meet in Annandale, Virginia together. I pounced upon the offer, and after meeting and chatting with him I counted down the days to the event.

After an exceptionally early start (around 4:30 in the morning, I believe!), we arrived in Annandale roughly four hours later. The original plan was actually for Joe, another collector, and I to come the night before and stay in a hotel room, but that plan fell through when the third party found alternate means of lodging. But never mind.

This was the first license plate collectors' meet I had been to before, and as might be expected I was highly curious about it and wasn't sure what to expect. It was held in the multipurpose activity room of a local church. I helped Joe carry dozens of crates in from his car, which must have contained hundreds of license plates altogether and covered several tables' worth of space when brought inside. By contrast, I didn't bring more than a half-dozen; my main goal was instead to get more plates and improve my meager collection.

Aside from Joe and I, the congregation included collectors such as Andrew Pang (who commented upon my namesake), Billy Moore, and many others I had heard about before. As might be expected from the meet's proximity, most of the plates on display and in others' trade boxes seemed to be from Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.. My initial lunch plans had to be scrapped when the Burger King that was alleged to be across the street turned out to have been boarded up, although surprisingly I neither got hungry nor sleepy during the meet.

Sure enough, I found a number of odds and ends that were interesting and desirable to me:

Ontario all-numeric 1967 passenger with a "Confederation" slogan commemorating the centennial of Canada that year, and a Québec motorcycle plate from 1977. Dig those funky colors!

I made some progress toward a "birthyear run" with these license plates. The Ohio was a bargain, and both it and the Ontario example even had the month right.

I've always been attracted to these bases, which I remember a lot from my childhood and have a very distinctive design. I'd eventually like to have a complete run of West Virginia map plates from 1976 to 1995, in much better condition than the extremely crappy examples I had in my collection before.
My mom: "I thought you had all of them already." Ah, I can't expect everyone to understand, can I?

Finally, here are my favorite finds, also from West Virginia: A yellow on reflective blue used car dealer plate from 1985, and a 1991 motorcycle plate.

By far the highlight of the event was the donation auction held near the end, in which everyone dumped the license plates they were sick of having on the platform, which then proceed to be auctioned off cheap in lots of about a half-dozen each to finance the event.

The auctioneer had a great sense of humor: A Maryland plate containing the initials "FDY" was described as "the personal plate of Franklin Delano...uh, Yoosevelt." "BA" became a "bachelor of arts" for the remainder of the plate number. Every single lot seemed to contain a Virginia dealer plate, and the really boring Maryland license plates of the '70s that no one wanted were described as "unmentionables." Other memorable moments: "Anyone up for two dollars? How about three? Forty? All right, how about four?" "A Virginia embossed (ooh!), an unmentionable, and a Virginia 'Z.'" "MOT [in the plate number 3MOT029]...that's the Ministry of Transportation." "They embossed 'Truck,' but didn't bother to emboss 'Texas' for some reason." "There's an odd stain on this...is it peanut butter?" I couldn't stop laughing at times. I didn't leave this part of the meet empty-handed, either, having snagged some Virginia plates with numbers like "HAH-676" and "OSU-183" (the latter creatively described by the autioneer as a special "Ohio State, Oregon State, or Oklahoma State University" issue) and trade box squatters on the cheap.

Joe Sallmen found a few interesting finds of his own, specifically some foreigns and a North Carolina vanity with the message "OH!MYGOD." After the excruciating task of bringing all the crates back to his car, Mr. Sallmen showed me where in or near Fairfax he briefly lived, and we went home. The plate meet was a great experience, and I look forward to going to another one in the future.

The Network License Plates The Idle Pen

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©2006 Andrew Turnbull.
Last update April 23, 2006.