It was nearly 20 years ago that Eric Vettoretti and I came to know the “institution” that is Rideau Antiques. Situated atop a hill in the Ontario village of Lombardy, it has been selling furniture, doors, windows, jars, bottles, sinks, signs, silverware, sirens, and pretty much anything else that you can think of since the 1960s.

The plate collectors I’ve known are a diverse group of people. For some, the interest stems from years of working on cars in shops. For others, it comes from an academic interest in studying events and records...

Gary George Edwards passed away earlier this month. He had developed multiple complications from injuries sustained in a fall earlier in...

The 2024 ALPCA Convention in Lansing was less of a convention for me, and more of a mission… a quartet of missions, actually. But square...

I was watching TV and playing on my phone on Sunday night when I received word from Don Goodfellow and Dave Colonna that longtime...

I write about the Barrie Automotive Flea Market every time I go there. But the way things are going, I might not write about it again...

In this busy hobby of plate-collecting, many of us can easily name a mentor or two: A more experienced collector who offered their time...

I have unhappy news to share, and I find this column particularly difficult to write. The Ontario plate-collecting community has lost a...

In the weeks after losing my father in August, I spent time around my parents’ house, supporting my mother in running errands, organizing...

The longer we spend in this hobby, the more excellent people there are to meet. By excellent people, I refer to those who enhance the...

As an ALPCA member, I subscribe to the ALPCA discussion group, wherein there is often much discussion about the club’s workings, regional...

It was twenty years ago this month that The Back Bumper was first launched! Back then, the Internet seemed to be catching on. There still...

In 1912, two men named Thomas Wilby and Jack Haney travelled across Canada in a 1912 Reo automobile, on what was the first trans-Canada...

I just got a letter from Sam! Yep, that Sam. The one who had a voice like sandpaper, and a heart of gold. Donald “Sam” Samis, of...

November 2016 has been a tough month for many members of ALPCA. Long-time member and great guy Dave Kuehn, a guru of all things...

December is usually a slow month for a Canadian plate collector—old cars are put away, so there are no shows, no outdoor flea markets,...

Don Samis was a plate collector’s plate collector. He didn’t have a ton of the rare stuff and generally wouldn’t blow scads of money in...

I just heard about the passing of Ernie Wilson, a former President of ALPCA, member number 361. It deeply saddens me that he's no longer...