Plate Adventures in August: Bothwell, Vineland (and Kingston)
- Jon Upton
- Sep 1
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 3
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. One destination was entirely new, two others I can’t attend often, and then something unexpected happened: An old contact bore fruit in a roundabout way, where I always expected futility.
I’ve known about this chip shack for a while, but I’ve never been able to check it out until now. MJ’s Own Munchies is a big step up from a food truck, with a wider range of menu options. You can eat on picnic tables indoors or out, but any plate collector will eat indoors because of… well, take a look. Bring some Tylenol for afterward, because your neck will ache from all the gawking at the ceiling.
I ended up getting a giant two-patty chicken burger, mostly because I've been ODing on beef all summer. My son Greg son got a huge poutine. While we were waiting, I happily took pictures of the walls and ceiling.
You know the saying, "Take a picture, it'll last longer?" That saying was tailor-made for situations like these with densely-packed walls of plates. Lots of common stuff, but certainly some diamonds among them.
I was surprised to find a contemporary motorcycle dealer plate at MJ's. You don't see those often.
An interesting short vanity. My son is still in the first half of his teenage years, so of course, there were poo jokes.
Pass the mustard. Pass the sriracha, too. Oh, and pass me that '52 PCV while you're at it!
MJ’s is located right at the borderline where St. Catharines meets Niagara-On-The-Lake. It’s too far out-of-the-way during my October journeys to Grimsby– there has never been enough time on the clock. It was a great way to have a late lunch on a Thursday in August, with plenty of time to get to my next destination.
I subscribe to Old Autos, which is the major sponsor of the annual Bothwell car show, which mostly runs the second weekend in August. The car show only runs on the Saturday, but there are vendors Friday and Saturday. These vendors appear to have been vetted by the organizers; there’s none of that garage sale garbage that you’d find in Barrie or Bothwell. All vendors sell car parts, petroliana, and general roadgeekiana, including a healthy assortment of signs and plates.
There's nothing like plates on dewy morning grass. I did pick up a potential major upgrader: A 1926 truck that had been whitewashed with soft, chalky paint. Someone had started rubbing the paint off, and was doing really well, but lost patience and quit. I’ll see if I can finish what was started, because the underlying condition could be VG. I also picked up the 999-111 passenger plate, but that already has a new home, as you'll read later.
Jim Schroeder soon appeared on scene ——looking well, I’m happy to say—— and he was on a picking mission, just as I was. We chatted as we pawed through the goodies. A market like this, for a plate nerd like me, is like a walk in a flower garden. When I was younger, I found it harder to derive joy from merely seeing plates that I wouldn’t or couldn’t buy. But these days, I happily snap pictures of colourful vendor tables. I guess writing these columns motivates me to take those pictures, but it’s fun all the same.
Both Jim and I took turns rooting through these crates of Ontario castoffs. There is plenty of opportunity to find a cool number stacked among all the common stuff, or an unexpected off-type, like that bus plate on the left.
The Knights of Columbus were raffling a '73 Camaro. It had a double-graphic plate that warranted a closer look. Turns out, it's a bona fide graphic on one side, and a decal on the other.
Jim found this cool framed promo picture of Eddie and the Edsels. Judging by the moustaches and mullets, this would have been taken in the 1980s.
My favourite Bothwell find wasn't even an Ontario licence plate. It was this awesome car club plate, made of painted steel. Painesville is in Ohio. Thanks to Murray from Ridgetown, who sometimes attends our meets in Acton and Grimsby. He was vending in Bothwell.
I stopped selling YOM pairs this year, but I did some shopping for Eric Vettoretti, who continues his respective YOM business. I picked up a few pairs for him that were on his "I'm low" list. Then I saw this circular railroad crossing warning sign. These were everywhere when we were kids, but they were supplanted in the 1980s in favour of the diamond-shaped signs that show actual tracks and the crossing geometry. Eric has wanted one for years... A Canadian one, without the letters R on either side, but neither of us had ever found one to buy. I found this one in Bothwell for $40.
After Bothwell, We drove through Chatham, where I’d gone only once, thirty years ago. Nothing huge going on there, antique-wise, but I didn’t have time to do a deeper dive. I’m sure there’s stuff waiting for those who can take the time. A now-departed plate guy, Ron Sparks, lived and collected there for many years.
Entering Chatham from the north, I spotted this ancient King's Highway 40 sign, with the number hand-painted using an older-style stencil. It's got to be 60 years old. Interestingly, it was mounted on a new wooden pole, still green from its pressure treatment.
We drove to a flea market downtown. It was the right kind of place to look, but it had no plates. A short distance away, I found these ancient traffic lights. The streets cross on an angle, but with no tunnel hoods or lenses, these lights almost appeared to be contradicting each other.
There was one more antique place to try. We went as far west as Tilbury. It had a few plates, but nothing I needed. But as for signs, it had a few. I found a second circular railroad sign, like the one I got for Eric. Weird to have never seen one, and then find two in one day. No need for it though, so I left it. Then, on the far back wall, I spotted a familar King's Highway sign, numbered 132. What was that doing here?
Highway 132 is a short road with its eastern terminus in Renfrew, which is about as deep into eastern Ontario as Tilbury is into western Ontario. Eric and I drive this highway at least once a year on our way to Barrie from Ottawa. How would a sign for such a short, minor highway end up in the opposite end of the province? Anyway, I knew that 132 was on Eric's list— He's collecting all the King's Highway signs from in and around Ottawa over the decades. I bought it for him on the spot, and it would be going straight onto his garage wall.
I went to visit Don Goodfellow Friday evening. Don has limited space, so he organizes much of his collection like mine: Alphabetized in boxes. Don had offered us a place to sleep for the night before Vineland, so I gave him the cool repeating 999-111 plate that I found in Bothwell that morning.
We arrived at Prudhomme’s market in Vineland the following morning and set up our tables and shades in the bright morning sun.
The spry and ageless Terry Ellsworth was already set up when we arrived. He had some really impressive plates up for grabs, including a great three-digit pair of 1921s. I was tempted, but they wouldn't upgrade my pair, and my low-number single is a two-digit.
Another view of Terry's setup in the morning sun. It would be a hot day before long, but the steady wind from the lake kept us from overheating.
Nothing terribly special about the plates ——just a YOM pickup for Eric—— but this is a picture that my wife calls "totes adorbs."
Don found a cool pair of 1935 dual-purpose plates for his collection.
The Vineland crew posing for the customary group shot. No, I didn't mean to pose with my plate upside-down.
A gentleman stopped by the meet and had a rubber plate to show. This one is included in Eric's comprehensive plate registry site, but the picture wasn't so good, so I took come clearer images. The owner isn't interested in selling, but was more interested to learn about how plates were issued between 1905 and 1910. I gave him the best info I had.
While I was in Vineland, Eric Vettoretti was in Kingston on a mission. I was waiting with baited breath to hear whether that mission was successful. Then, in early afternoon, Eric sent me a brief text of confirmation: “The Eagle has landed.”
Many Ontario collectors have long known about the ServiceOntario office at 1650 Bath Road in Kingston. That’s the one known for having a few hundred plates on the back wall. Some were out-of-province turn ins, some were gifts from Canadian Forces personnel returning from overseas, and some were worn-out vanity plates. There were old plates, new plates, in-between plates… a real smattering. Somehow, the Bath office had acquired a 1944 Ontario dealer plate, one of only three known to survive. I tried to make a play for it several years ago. Rather than cold-calling or emailing, I wrote a letter, included pictures, and described the dealer plate, its rarity, and expressed an interest in it, should there ever come a day when the owner would want to part with it. I didn’t get a reply. I put reminders in my phone to renew the contact periodically every 2-3 years, but nothing had come of it.
The second week of August, on a Wednesday, the owner of the outlet contacted Eric out of the blue. Long story short, they were soon to become a casualty of the Ford government’s “brilliant” plan to move those services into Staples stores. Their outlet was closing involuntarily by month’s end and they were looking to sell their wall of plates. Eric and I quickly did our own independent assessments of what was there, and we arrived at a four-figure value within a couple hundred dollars of each other. Eric arranged to make the trip down to Kingston on short notice to view the plates and negotiate, and as fortune would have it, he was able to land the Eagle. Which meant some fun lot-splitting would be coming up soon. That suited us fine… I ended up buying more stuff for Eric than myself while in Bothwell and Vineland, so we had some squaring to do using our standard round-robin format. By prior agreement, I took the '44 dealer into my collection, as Eric has one of the other survivors (the third is in a museum in Pennsylvania).
Going through a diverse lot like this is a lot of fun, and it's a learning experience. There were numerous international plates. While I know about the common ones, like western European temp plates, there are others that I didn't recognize. That's just one of the reasons why the ALPCA Archives are such a valuable resource. I spent a few days matching up various countries and types, including one that was closer to home than I realized. But that's a story for another day.
