2025 Highlights and Outtakes

Here’s the outtake round-up for 2025… pictures that didn’t make it into any 2Cents columns, most of which are being seen here for the first time. Enjoy!

My grandmother was born in Saskatchewan and lived there until she left town when she was in her twenties. She took a lot of photos and had a knack for remembering details. She wrote notes on many of her snaps. She was out in the country with a couple of pals on a warm evening in 1936 when this picture was taken. That's her shadow in the foreground. I don't know whose car they were using. The plate is a black-on-orange Saskie, glossy enough to reflect the setting sun in the dark numbers.

I spotted this laughable repainted plate on in a parking lot. The plate, having suffered the infamous peeling problem from a few years ago, is too old to qualify for a free replacement. So I guess the owner made a DIY fix so that the government doesn't win.

This is a springtime shot of Eric Vettoretti admiring the plates-and-junque that are nailed to the side of the big red antique barn in the east end of Norwood along Highway 7. It's a great place to look around, but anything of interest has a sky-high price.

Me in the same store on the same day. Prices for each plate start at $50 here, but you never know... I won't find a plate with my ALPCA number on it by ignoring places like this.

Mike Franks' truck is now on the road, and he drove it to Acton this past April. I learned how to drive in an '82 Chev square body pickup. Mike was still inside the meet hall, but I couldn't resist hopping aboard anyway for a photo.

I spotted this triple-two vanity plate in traffic while passing through Oshawa. I think it was of the old reflective aluminum type. It wasn't in the best condition, but it was still pretty cool to find. I had to use the one-touch feature of my dash camera to get a still image. We were moving the whole time.

As the photo might suggest, this is an Audi A8. Whoever the owner is, I commend them on the excellent use of a two-character personalized plate! I've always wished that Ontario would allow single-character personalized plates. I wrote to the Minister of Transportation to suggest that maybe they could be purchased through a lottery or auction, but I got a canned answer saying "Two is the minimum we allow."

I spotted this YOM-plated 1953 Studebaker Commander in Brockville over the summer, about a month after I formally closed my YOM business. The plate didn't come from me though... turns out it's an original set that was sourced by Eric Vettoretti through Yomplates.ca.

A nice smattering of colourful plates on a flea market table in Bothwell. I don't get to go there very often, but I enjoy venturing into the southwest part of Ontario whenever I can. When I lived in London in the 90s, I would take long bike rides through the surrounding towns and counties. I get nostalgic for those days.

At the time I snapped this picture, these fantastic 1921 plates were the property of Terry Ellsworth. They're smiling in the August sun at the outdoor meet in Vineland.

Eric and I acquired this plate over the summer with a large quantity of other internationals. I had never seen anything like this before. It was clearly German-made, and the letters "CDN" could only stand for Canada. The number was of a similar alpha series to the more recent Canadian Forces in Europe plates that I've seen (small pic shown here for reference). So I brought it to Alan Bones for an opinion. Right away, he confirmed that this long German plate is the next version of the Canadian Forces. Hard to find, too-- such that he was still looking for one. I left the plate with Alan for what sports teams call "future considerations." But not before I took a picture of it on his porch!

Yay, a highway sign. But it's the lesser-seen secondary highway type. And what's with the U tab on top? Well, this highway covers St. Joseph Island. It goes south from Highway 17, crosses a bridge, and then follows a stirrup-shaped course around the island, such that it intersects with itself at one point. The highway follows the concession lines of the island, which are named with letters of the alphabet: There are names such as A-Line, B-Line, etc. So to help locals figure out which part of the highway they're on, a tab is added to the sign to denote the concession a particular portion of highway follows. There is no use for cardinal direction tabs on these signs; traffic headed "north" could be moving along the eastern or western shore of the island, since it's a continuous loop.

I was stoked to acquire this sign while on vacation in Northern Ontario. I popped by a favourite antique joint that I visit each year, and I found this two-sided DAA sign, with grommets still intact. There was also a CAA sign with just the oval, plus an AAA sign, all from the same general era. DAA is an insurance company, as opposed to CAA and AAA, which are travel service agencies. The clincher on this sign, for me, is the map of Canada. The price was steep, but reasonable given the sign's condition. Right now, it hangs in front of some other cool signs in my garage. I'll find it a more permanent spot next summer.

The Barrie Automotive Flea Market grows more disappointing each year. You'll still find plates, but it's a shadow of what it once was. I came very close to buying the 1925 truck plate at the upper left, but I wasn't sure if it would upgrade the one I already had. I wasn't in a gambling mood, and the price was steep, so I left it behind. The rest of the board was pretty cool to look at.

This short 1950 plate was among the goodies on the board. I loved the repeating numbers, but the price was a little high for the condition... at least, to me. I have a nice short 1950 already, so I decided to leave this one for the next guy.

Short Ontario plates come around every so often, but three-character versions are still pretty rare. I wondered how much of the rash might wash off in an acid bath. Possibly not enough to warrant the $40 price tag, so I left it be.

My son took this picture of me rooting for plates in Barrie. It reminds me of my trips there fifteen to twenty years ago, when there were three times as many vendors, and lots more plates to find. Nowadays, there are only a couple of vendors with boxes of plates like this. As much as I complain about that, I'll probably still make the trip there each September.

A 1918 Ontario plate in the Highlands Cinemas museum in Kinmount. I wrote about my first visit there last year, but I was a bit rushed because our movie was starting. This time, I had more opportunity to poke around. The owner adorns his displays with old plates as part of his decade-by-decade tribute to film and popular culture.

I visited a collector a couple of towns over to offer an opinion on valuation. He had acquired a replica of an Ontario leather shield, which was commissioned years ago by a now-departed collector. He knew it was a replica, but wasn't sure if it had any value. I suggested that its value was only in the work that was needed to put it together. It was neatly stitched by a leather worker, and the oval came from a professional engraver, so hiring those respective people would come with a cost. The size is incorrect; this shield is roughly the same size as the single-letter dealer plates of this era, and smaller than the numeric plates that were issued to passenger cars. The main clue that it's a replica is the use of thin embossed aluminum power pole numbers, and the rivets used to hold it on. Real numbers are cast aluminum, much thicker, and don't have rivets showing in the front.

I had a plate to deliver to Thomas Zimmermann in Grimsby. Well, two plates, actually: He's a Volkswagen guy, and a random vanity plate that I turned up seemed to be right up his alley. But the main attraction was the 1918 plate that I'm holding. It had been shellacked a century before, giving it a golden hue. Thomas shot this picture of me at the registration table just as I was digging his plates out.

There's an SUV that I've seen parked in my neighbourhood for the past few years, and it has Mexican plates from the state of Guerrero. At first, I thought it might just be a visitor, but I see this vehicle too often for that to be true. Recently, I noticed new plates on it. I'm not so familiar with Mexican graphic issues, so I stopped the car to check the new tags out. The new ones are also from Guerrero; I guess they've updated the design. I noticed some strange white bordering along the edges of the embossed numbers. Initially, I figured it might be the reflective sheeting starting to blister or peel. I mean, that's been a problem with Ontario plates for years, right? But when I looked very closely, I saw that 's a security feature: The white outline is actually serial number of the plate, micro-printed around each digit. Why can't we have cool things like that here?

While Christmas shopping, I spotted a three-digit personalized plate on a Beemer, parked on the street. On second glance, I noticed that it was made using the French base option. Pretty cool! I'm past the point of leaving cards under people's wipers to inquire about getting one, but ten times out of ten, I'll take a picture.