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Formerly the BACK BUMPER
Collecting Ontario licence plates for 41 years
2CENTS ARCHIVES
First started as "My 2 Cents" in 1997, I have written posts numbering into the hundreds. New posts arrive continually. Find an article by clicking the tag cloud below, or selecting a category, doing a search (see magnifying glass below on the right), or just scroll down to see the articles in chronological order.
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A Perfect 10
Way back in 2018, I received a picture from a person somewhere in Ontario who was apparently the owner of a 1920 Ontario plate, number...
Oct 9
Plate Adventures in August: Bothwell, Vineland (and Kingston)
I took another trip in August to round out the “makeup” events that took the place of my cancelled trip to the ALPCA Convention in Tulsa....
Sep 1
The Movie Man and His Plates
I never thought I’d see the day when I’d make the trip all the way to Barrie, but then skip out. The Barrie Automotive Flea Market was a...
Sep 14, 2024
Open For Business: A Plategate Unicorn Revealed
I was fortunate this month to acquire a unicorn-calibre Ontario plate for my collection: A blank Ontario plate, discarded from 3M, with...
Jan 18, 2023
Vermontariodyssey
I spent a day road-tripping during the May long weekend to tie up a couple of plate-related loose ends. I originally conceived the...
May 23, 2022
Vineland and the Great Outdoors
The annual indoor October swap meet (heretofore known as “Grimsby”) won’t happen in 2021 because of the unpredictability of changes to...
Sep 1, 2021
A Plethora of Plates
When collecting quantities of plates, it’s often about being first on the scene and acting quickly before the runner-up has a chance to...
Jul 29, 2021
2002 Jubilee Jubilation
This story was originally told in three non-consecutive installments in this column, spanning April through November 2002. Those three...
Mar 7, 2021
Normy's Wonder Case
For only the second time in the history of The Back Bumper, I’m handing the 2Cents pen over to a guest writer. Norm Ratcliffe has been...
Nov 16, 2020
Forest Junkyard
I have a recurring dream where I’ve wandered into a clearing in a forest. There’s an old shack nearby that hasn’t been touched by anyone...
Aug 27, 2020
Plates in the Killaloe sunrise
Some years are great for collecting plates. For me, 2018 was a bonanza. But other years can be a bust. Collecting plates isn't a...
Aug 7, 2020
Harvest
August is my favourite month. It’s always been so, ever since I was a boy in Algoma District. The mosquitoes and blackflies finish their...
Aug 31, 2018
Downtown garage
I received a phone call from an antique auto enthusiast last week. We hadn’t spoken in a few years, but previous to that, we had...
Dec 7, 2017
Minus 26 on highway 60
Over the Christmas holidays, I received a message from a person in the Huntsville area. They had a batch of licence plates, given to them...
Jan 22, 2017
Summer of '89
When I was a boy, my family had a cottage. To get there, we’d have to drive for about 40 minutes northeast of Sault Ste. Marie. We lived...
Aug 11, 2015
Lightning striking again
A funny thing happened to me recently. But like any good yarn, the lead-up and delivery are everything, and I simply cannot pass up a...
Apr 5, 2014
Bleak midwinter
I have trouble writing articles for this column during the winter months. License plate collecting seems to be a summer pastime, for the...
Feb 15, 2014
Northern Ontario road trip August '97
In the years that I’ve been writing 2 Cents articles for probably no one but me, I’ve made a point of retelling the story of each swap...
Nov 23, 2013
Five oh eight
One Saturday in early May, a gentleman from southwestern Ontario, whom I have never met, went to an estate auction. The man—a collector...
Dec 31, 2012
Why I skipped Grimsby
By now, many of my faithful readers know that I wasn’t able to go to the fall Tinchasers’ swap meet in Grimsby. It was an unfortunate...
Nov 11, 2012
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