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 10. I collect low-number Ontario plates, with my self-created definition of having three or fewer numbers for the early plates up to the 1930s. I salivated over the picture for a couple of hours before replying.

One doesn’t want to ask too many questions of a stranger– I don’t want to come across as a nut-job– so I congratulated him for having such a cool plate, and I advised him that it was probably first issued to a member of the provincial cabinet of the day. And because it was just a show-and-tell context, I didn’t ask for a price, but I did say that if a day came when he decided to part with it, to please let me know.

In these situations, I feel it’s important to stay passive. People who aren’t looking to sell things generally don’t respond well to perceived pressure. So my approach has always been to grease the gears gently every couple of years or so. I filed away the picture and made a note of where it came from. I set a reminder on my phone to re-establish contact three years later.

By the spring of 2021, I was bored from a lack of things to do during the aftermath of COVID. Then my phone went “ding” and reminded me to contact the person with the number 10 plate. I referred back to our prior conversation and provided the link to my site so he would be more likely to remember me. By that time, I had collected low-number plates from a few adjacent years, like 1918, 1922 and 1926, so my low-number run was starting to take shape.

“Three years later, could you be convinced to part with it?” I asked. He replied that he wasn’t interested in selling, but he did send another picture that offered some context as to why. The image was of a collection of early Ontario plates, some with the number 10, and others with the number 100, plus a few other interesting numbers. As for the origin of the plates, he mentioned that some were on a government limousine and that they (presumably the 1918s) were used in a victory parade after the end of World War I.

He had received offers on them, but he still wasn’t interested in selling. He asked me to keep the picture to myself, and so I did. I offered my contact info and said I would make a serious offer on them if ever he chose to sell. We wished each other a nice day, and that was that.

The picture that I kept to myself——as the then-owner requested——for years.

It was time to plan for the long-term. It seemed clear that if I were to make a serious offer, I’d have to put my money where my mouth was, so I started a “war chest” fund that would cover me if and when the time came. I set a reminder on my phone to re-establish contact in another five years. I had stated my interest twice, and was met with the same response, so I didn’t want to raise the issue too often. I slowly saved money from my YOM business, never knowing whether it would be needed. But I really wanted that 1920 plate. And some of the others, too.

As it turned out, there was no need for a phone reminder at the five-year mark. I heard from a couple of well-placed friends that the full collection would soon be offered for sale via auction. It would be sold by the Millers. They promote their items heavily, and hammer prices can be pretty steep, but my war chest was as ready as it was going to be. I visited their site daily for a couple of weeks until I finally saw the auction posted.

I was surprised to learn that the auction kept the plates grouped together, for the most part. The number 10 plates (eleven in total) were given their own lot, and the number 100 plates (six in all) were grouped separately. I would have thought that they would have broken the lot up into individual years, but the provenance factor came into play. The plates were part of the estate of George Henry, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario back in 1913. He served as Minister of Highways from 1923 through 1930, and went on to be the Premier of Ontario from 1930 to 1934.

Keeping the plates together seemed to make sense in that regard, but most plate collectors I know (myself included) prefer to pick-and-choose individual examples for our collections. I already had a beautiful two-digit 1918 in my collection from my departed friend, Bill Thoman. The number 10 plates for 1918 were in lesser condition and were surplus to my needs. I wished that they were listed individually, so that I could just go for broke on the ones I really wanted.

I contacted a couple of collector friends to see if they were interested, but they weren’t low-number fanatics in the same way that I was. I started doing some math and planning my bid. It could get pretty expensive, but my war chest was ready. Still, the question remained: Which to keep, and which not? Did I care if pairs stayed together? Was it that important to keep Mr. Henry’s plates together?

I got a bit of help in that regard when Krystian Kozinski contacted me to ask if I had any plans. He likes low numbers just as I do. We both figured it would make sense to just lay our cards on the table, and see if there was any common ground. My top priority was the 1920 — of which there was only a single available— and I needed the better 1915. In return, he’d take the better examples of the remaining pairs. He offered to split the cost 50-50, but that would leave him with five plates as compared to my six. I did have a low-number 1921 that I had been saving to trade for another low-number. So I offered the '21 to him, so we would each come out with six plates. Then, a 50-50 cost-sharing would be much more fair. We agreed to team up on this basis.

I had a bid placed already, and we watched cautiously over the next couple of weeks as the bid value inched upward. It wasn’t going nearly as high as we feared. I checked with the auction house to see if there would be a “soft close,” meaning a 3-minute extension of the auction if an online bid came up with less than 3 minutes to go… Like HiBid does. But the plan was for the auction to be live-streamed, complete with a chanting auctioneer. So I’d have to be logged on and following the stream when our lot came up, so that I could increase our bid in real time when needed.

The auction started at 9 am, and it took over six hours for our lot, 281, to draw near. The six number 100 plates, having been listed in lot 280, would come up first, but the condition was poor and we decided to leave them be. Finally, the number 10 plates came up for bids.

Our bid was still the top one, and the auctioneer worked the podium as hard as he could for the following two minutes. I fully expected more bids to appear… but none came. Fair warning was called… still no competition. My heart was racing, and so was Krystian’s as he watched from home. Many of you were also watching. Here it is again, from my phone's viewpoint:

The hammer dropped, and we were the winners. Neither of us could believe it. The auctioneer wasted no time moving on to the next lot, leaving us to stare at our screens and fathom what just happened. Both Krystian and I had been prepared to pay more than double what our final bid had been. Had we just scored a steal of a deal, from an expensive auction house? It sure felt like it. Had we not teamed up, we may well have traded punches and realized a price that was just as high as we feared.

Krystian went to pick up the lot in New Hamburg after I wired the payment. I was originally going to wait until Grimsby to pick up my half. But as luck would have it, the Toronto Blue Jays made the 2025 Postseason, and I scored tickets for my son and I to watch Game 1 of the American League Divisional Series… so I dropped on Krystian while I was in the area to make the final arrangement. He had an empty spot ready on his display wall for his low-numbered 1921. We posed with me holding my favourite plate of the bunch— the 1920 that I waited seven years to acquire. Awesome!