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The Network7-24-2009: 2009 Erie Pa. ALPCA Convention, Part 5
Several events and happenings were on the planning ledger of the final day. After my roommates and I checked out of our hotel, I retrieved my car from the basement parking garage and spun back over to the convention hall once more. First in the itinerary was a complementary breakfast organized by the staff, in which I recall loading up on a multitude of bagels. With that over with, it was then time to get down to business.
The Annual Business Meeting isn't exactly the most exciting part of the convention, but it's nice to get down to nuts and bolts and see what the simmering issues are. A number of topics were raised; including the issue of fiscal organization and (as always) the touchy subject of whether fake plates could in some scenarios be condoned.
Display awards were the next ceremony to proceed. In previous years, awards for displays were divvied up on the basis of semi-arbitrary categories that they were hastily filed into: Passenger displays, non-passenger, ephemera, and so on. Most of this categorical subjugation (er, subdivision) was eliminated this year, however, so there was simply a fixed set of first place, second place, and "honorable mention" awards to go around to everyone in one bunch. The awards were very distinctive in appearance, as usual: First-place contestants received a blue porcelain enamel award in the style of Pennsylvania license plates of the early 20th century, while second-place contestants received plaques with actual 1954 Pennsylvania plates bolted to them. Both the 1954 plates and the "55" serial of the first-place awards tied into the fact that ALPCA was founded in 1954 and this year's Erie event was the 55th annual convention.
Last, but not least, were inductions into the club's Hall of Fame for outstanding contributions to the hobby. Two of the inductees this year had sadly deceased in the recent past, but veteran collector Verdon Rustine of Pennsylvania (#343) was able to accept his invitation and award.
With the meeting over, it was time to retreat back into the convention hall for a final day of finds, talk, and browsing. Although the hall wasn't scheduled to close for six hours, however, it seemed as if the convention center staff were getting a head start: Tables and chairs had already started to be stacked and piled away, starting in the corner of the room I was set up in! After hastily retrieving my traders from the now-bare floor and concluding that I wouldn't have gotten many sales or trades in on Saturday anyway, I carried my plates over to the opposite corner of the room, shoved them underneath Jon Upton's table for safekeeping, and went on my last trek around. There wasn't much to see...people were packing up and going home, and I had combed through what was left of the poop the day before. Even so, I made a few last-minute scores: A set of protective bags for my collection; as well as a couple nice things to add to it, both from Jon Upton: A natural 1977 Wisconsin passenger, and an Ontario "Keep it Beautiful" plate bearing a semi-uncommon natural 1983 sticker and an interesting serial combination (SYS-151).
Joe Sallmen went a bit crazy with crates of plates during the donation auction, as usual; however, this time I didn't stay to see the brunt of the aftermath. After exchanging myriad handshakes and goodbyes with my collector friends and various roommates of the four days before, I hit the road shortly after noon...budgeting my time so that I sailed into Wisconsin just in time to see Barenaked Ladies perform at Milwaukee's Summerfest that evening. A fun time.
Did I have an enjoyable time at the ALPCA convention? Definitely. Although improving my collection was the ostensible reason why I was there, the real treat of the event was the social aspect involved: It was great fun to meet and converse with other collectors with similar interests and preoccupations; some of whom I hadn't seen since Huntsville two years before, and some of whom (such as Manny Jacob, Jim Moini, and Jon Upton) I hadn't had the chance to see before at all.
Was the convention better than the Huntsville, Alabama event of 2007? It's hard to say. Lodging was no doubt better in Huntsville. Since it was my first convention, the Huntsville experience had a lot of positive novelty and intensity going on about it as well, which makes a fair comparison a bit difficult. Erie was a bit of a hit-and-miss city, with ritzy neighborhoods and shoreline developments bumping up uncomfortably against run-down industrial areas. That said, I'd take it over Huntsville; whose street action and overlying blandness resembled a ghost town. Erie also had the edge in climate, whose lake-induced atmosphere put Huntsville's landlocked hotness and humidity to shame. The essential plate-collecting experience, in any case, was comparable at both.
7-18-2009: 2009 Erie Pa. ALPCA Convention, Part 4
Although my mind had reconciled the unfortunate news about Michael Jackson the evening before, by the point of Friday news had filtered in of yet another death that hit close to home: Keith Marvin, a veteran license plate collector whose periodic contributions to ALPCA's newsletter over the years (and lively tales of "tin chasing" in the 1930s) were required reading for anyone enthusiastic about the hobby. He will be missed.
With most other convention preoccupations and commitments out of the way, I took the opportunity to take a few photos of the many interesting license plate displays that people had put together for the event. Perhaps the single most impressive example was Gus Oliver's tasteful Oklahoma assembly, filled with an amazing variety of American Indian tribal license plates, contextual information, and memorabilia. One-of-a-kind displays included an arrangement of first plate issues of the first thirteen U.S. states (with many impossibly rare examples within), and an array of "Historically Significant License Plates from the F.D.R. Era" by Charles Gauthier. Almost all the displays, however, were impressive in their own right:
In terms of finds of the day, things were starting to slow down. I happened upon a couple of Manitoba license plates I wanted, and bought a lot of mid '80s Mississippis for a song to pad my trade box and get something that I wanted for my birthyear run.
For dinner, I followed Manny Jacob and Dave Steckley out to the Smugglers' Wharf, a seafood restaurant situated within convenient walking distance from the hall on a nearby pier. As luck would have it, we arrived at the place just in time to have the open option of a Friday special with all-you-can-eat fish. I wasn't disappointed: The food was fresh, satisfying, and delicious; the view and atmosphere were pleasant, and I had a great time conversing with other collectors over our meal.
The donation auction got underway soon after. (During the registration, I narrowly avoided the volunteer miskeying my name in as "Andy Turnball," but fortuantely that was one disaster averted.) The selections of items were the usual fare: Convention souvenir plates with low and repeating numbers; sample and prototype license plates donated by state and provincial DMVs; various bits of plate-related memorabilia (such as a couple of "United Plates of America" jigsaw puzzles), and the collector donations themselves; ranging the gamut from rare types to undesirable junk. Veteran ALPCAn Chuck Sakryd did an excellent job of providing a voice for the auction, with former president Mike Naughton periodically filling in as well.
Plate after plate and lot after lot went up on the auction block...and invariably, someone would snap it up. I occasionally get carried away with bidding at donation auctions myself, but this time that wasn't to be: The only license plate I saw that I found of interest was 1985 Rhode Island police plate number 182, and I dropped out of the bidding for that when the numbers went too high.
Although the auction was destined to last until the wee hours of the morning, by the fourth hour in I had had enough and decided to leave. I made my way out the door and into the streets; my senses and reflexes heightened by the state of being alone in a strange city at night. After passing by a few desolate corners, a few residents enjoying the nightlife, and a car blasting "Billie Jean" out open windows into the evening, I crashed back in at our hotel; joining Jon, who had given up on the auction even earlier than I did.
7-15-2009: 2009 Erie Pa. ALPCA Convention, Part 3
By Thursday, I found myself comfortably slipping into and navigating the day's happenings. I started off the domino of events with the mild surprise of picking up an FM station from Kitchener, Ontario in the car. With my sunburn from two days before still a painfully fresh memory in my mind, I stopped at a converted Eckerd-turned-Rite Aid store to spring for a bottle of sunscreen. I nearly ran into a "Road Closed" sign in downtown Erie while completing the final leg of the trek over from the motel, but an improvised detour soon steered me to the right place. Of course, I really wasn't exposed to all that much sunshine for the first half of the day: The action, of course, laid indoors.
From left to right: A curious juxtaposition of licorice candy and Australian number plates, vintage road signs (dibs on the M-28 marker!), and expired and sample validation stickers galore...
I managed to finally complete my routine spot-check of (almost) every table in the hall, allowing me to shift my priorities over from frantic browsing to more selective combing of trade boxes, marveling at displays, and conversing with other collectors at last. New arrivals this day from the other side of Lake Erie were Jon Upton and Eric Vettoretti, who I encountered on the far end of the convention floor in the midst of frantically pricing their wares on the spot. After browsing through their traders in the vain hope of finding an early '60s Ontario with "10240" in the serial, I made my introductions and wished them well.
I was making a bit of well-wished progress at my own table as well. I parted company with a small stack of duplicate Plates magazine issues I had accumulated a few weeks earlier and sold a number of old license plates; including all I had from West Virginia.
My lodging arrangements for this night (and the rest of the trip) were at the Avalon hotel in downtown Erie; in collaboration with Jon Upton, Craig Hardesty (originally from West Virginia; who I had room-shared with in Huntsville two years before), and Craig's friend Chris (a last-minute addition to our plans). Fortunately I had the foresight of bringing a sleeping bag along, and the room was more than large enough to accomodate all of us with reasonable room...though wiggle room wasn't exactly at a surplus! After dropping off our bags and fiddling a bit with the climate control to no avail, we went downstairs once more.
If there was one thing that I hadn't seen very much of since arriving in Erie two days earlier, it was the city of Erie itself: I hadn't been able to afford more than a passing glance at its buildings, neighborhoods, and street scenes in the midst of convention action on the water's edge. To alleviate that, Chris, Craig, and I got together with Joe Sallmen (also from West Virginia) to scout out the surroundings and look for a good place for dinner. An ersatz block party was going on a block away (thus explaining the "Road Closed" signs I had seen earlier in the day), with radio music blaring away. In spite of that bit of action (and going around the block a few times), there wasn't really all that much to see. We wound up back at the hotel, which fortunately had a full-service restaurant directly inside.
One hamburger later, we continued our excursion around Erie. Our next stop was Joe Sallmen's motel...a glaringly unremodeled downtown artifact with two shaky stories and (in all certainty) a healthy supply of bedbugs within. While Craig, Chris, and I waited for Joe to attend to a few duties inside, I happened upon my strangest find of the convention: An envelope laying on the pavement that turned out to contain a block of four unused, ancient postage stamps within. Who did they belong to? How did they get there? I may never know.
The last time we had met nearly two years earlier, Joe had been driving a rapidly-deteriorating 1992 Buick LeSabre with a non-functional driver's side window and a battery cable that periodically lost connection for no apparent reason. Since then, he had "upgraded" to an ever-so-slightly newer 1993 Plymouth Acclaim with basic trim, almost no power equipment, and a sagging headliner: Not exactly a sight inspiring confidence; though in all certainty there were likely only so many things that could go wrong. Nevertheless we piled in, and paid a visit to Presque Isle.
Presque Isle (literally, "almost an island") is a peninsula that juts out into Lake Erie, forming a barrier to the city harbor as well as the site of a present-day state park. A notable feature of the peninsula is the Presque Isle Lighthouse, built in 1872 and staffed by various keepers until well into the twentieth century. By the time we had ventured to this point it was nearly dusk, and the shores of Presque Isle afforded a wonderful view of the Erie skyline just across the water. An amusement park is located nearby, and in fact a bridge to a roller coaster passes directly over the road out to the "isle."
After a day of adventure and surprise, Craig, Chris, and I finally rejoined Jon and turned into our hotel once again; where we encountered yet another surprise: The news that Michael Jackson had died. The events of the day had wound down, however, and I belatedly shut off the lights for another night.
7-13-2009: 2009 Erie Pa. ALPCA Convention, Part 2
June 24th was action day at the ALPCA convention. A few stragglers continued to wheel and deal in the convention center parking lot, but the real excitement was slated for the inside. At 11:00 a.m. it was time to go in, and a procession ensued.
Much like Huntsville's Von Braun Center in 2007, Erie's Bayfront Convention Center this year was a large and relatively utilitarian space. I checked in at the registration table to secure my table number and receive my laminated name badge (which I felt fortunate to receive at all, given how close I had cut the pre-registration deadline weeks before!) Somehow, in spite of being as large as it was, the space wasn't quite large enough: Every single table in the main space had been snapped up by the time I entered the doors, so I (and quite a few other collectors) were instead shunted into the next room over to set up shop. I didn't really care, though: The most exciting prospect of the day was digging in. After arranging my trading stock upon the table top (and making a resolution to check back at the top of every hour), I set out to do just that.
I made a bit of progress at finds this day as well; though nothing was quite as earth-shattering as the scores of the day before. A New Jersey historic plate with the nifty "QQ" suffix and a couple additions to the birthyear run were probably the highlights. One collector had a bulk lot of late-issue California plates on hand, and I plucked out a few with interesting block combinations (such as 5ZZZ, 6BAY, and 6EYE) to add to my own stock of traders. While digging through the lot, I came upon a few plates in the 6EVE series. "Gee," I thought to myself, "I wonder if I can find a plate starting with 6EVE6; for a symmetrical score?" Sure enough, I did...although this unfortunately proved to be the extent of my fortuitous alphanumeric letter block finds of the day.
The center was equipped with a handful of convenient facilities, including a snack bar. While it didn't have the full quick-service food lineup (or underpriced drink refills) that the Huntsville convention hall did, it was convenient enough for what it was and alleviated the need to leave the building before dinnertime. It was also the first convention center snack bar I saw that had beer on tap; although I didn't take advantage of it.
The day went by quickly, and before I knew it it was time for the hall to close and for dinner to begin. As usual, a special "welcome reception" was planned on the spot with its own meal involved...although since the airline-quality vegetables and still-held souvenir plate of the Huntsville reception in 2007 were still fresh in my mind, I didn't bother with the special dinner ceremony this time around. Instead, I decided to join Dave Nicholson and a few of his Maine compatriots for dinner at T.G.I. Friday's at the other end of town. I ordered a strawberry "slush" beverage that was about three-quarters ice in composition; and at one point "Never Let You Go" came on the background music. All in all, it was a good day. We headed back to our respective motels afterwards, planning out our chops for the next morning...
7-11-2009: 2009 Erie Pa. ALPCA Convention, Part 1
The international convention of the Automobile License Plate Collectors' association is a highlight of the hobby that happens every year: Four days of collectors intermingling, showing off displays, sharing information, and trading plates. I had a pleasurable time attending the 2007 convention held in Huntsville, Alabama two years ago, and I was naturally curious when the convention site came within driving distance again this year.
Some things in my life had changed since 2007: I had moved from the wasteland of West Virginia to the dairyland of Wisconsin, for example. Some things had not: I still felt as though details of my life were in flux, and nevertheless my interest in license plates and vehicle registration schematics remained as strong as ever. For the latter reason, I went ahead and registered for the convention...but for the former reason, I wound up cutting the pre-registration deadline absurdly close!
I revved up the car and set out for the open road on Monday, June 22. Although I could have conceivably made the trip to Erie in one day if I had chosen to do so, I instead elected to split the drive in two for convenience and to work in a visit to family in southeast Michigan in the bargain. The trip in question went by pleasantly enough: After driving due south from Manitowoc and Milwaukee for the first leg of the tour, I took the tollway around Chicago and followed I-94 into Michigan, arriving at the major stop of the day just in time for dinner. The following day, I got up bright and early and made the loop around the bottom of Lake Erie for the final leg of the trip there. After stopping for lunch in Conneaut, Ohio (a stone's throw from Pennsylvania), I sailed into Erie.
Erie as a place was a new experience for me: Cleveland and Pittsburgh were the closest I had come to it, geographically, before. This year's convention was actually originally slated to be held near Pittsburgh; but the convention center there apparently went bankrupt in the meantime, forcing a scramble to come up with an alternate location. This location seemed satisfactory enough: I-79 more or less feeds itself into Erie's downtown street grid, so finding my way around wasn't too difficult to do. (Still, I managed to make a wrong turn before righting my way again!) Soon I came face to face with the place that would be the center of activity for the next few days: The Bayfront Convention Center, a piece of new development situated in a formerly-industrial area literally on the shore of Lake Erie.
Traditionally, the beginning of conventions has been bookended by an "informal" meet-and-greet in the parking lot. By this time of day, most other collectors had already set up shop on the spot; wandering around and conversing with others. I found a handy parking spot and soon joined in on the action. It was fun touching up on things with Joe Sallmen and Josh Husiar, my old compatriots from West Virginia; as well as Gary Walker, who traveled all the way from Victoria, Australia to be there!
Aside from social interaction, one thing I rever about the meet-and-greet is the chance to make great finds...and this year, I wasn't disappointed. One of my very first comings-across was a teal 1994/95 series Wisconsin ZA Trailer plate...an uncommon type. Upon browsing through a pile of someone's two-dollar plates, I neared the Oregon section and pulled out something extraordinary: A blue 1964-series Oregon license plate...with the uncommon narrow spacing seen only on very early plates; bearing an uncommon 1975 sticker, which most registrants skipped over due to the implementation of two-year validations! A double whammy if there ever was one...which now occupies a rightful place in my own collection. Yet another interesting find was a 1995 Wisconsin passenger plate with an unusual bright yellow-painted back.
I soon ran into Dave Nicholson of Maine (my roommate and more or less collaborator for the next two days), and had a great laugh with Elvin Godbehere of Texas over my sarcastic critique of the new Texas license plate. (I'll probably get around to posting that here, eventually.) All said, the pre-convention warm up was a very productive day...although I paid the price with my skin. I had neglected to pack along sunscreen the day before, and by the end of the afternoon the back of my neck felt as though it were burned to a crisp.
Lest there was any doubt of the industrial role this area of the city once had, this was the view westward from the parking lot...