About The Tag Dr.

I got the license plate bug as a kid in the mid to late 1950's growing up in Ohio when my dad would remove the plates from our car and I'd hang them up in the garage. Although dad wasn't a tag collector per se, we had a wall full of colorful '40's, '50's and '60's Ohio plates that made a really nice display. I can remember going into the garage as a little kid and just staring at those walls. The colors and numbers were a big fascination to me, and nothing has changed after all these years.

Being somewhat of a late bloomer on the internet (2001) I immediately found out there were lots of folks really into plates. Prior to this, I honestly thought I was the only guy on earth into tags. I had never met another guy that shared my passion. But soon after that, I discovered the license plate club, ALPCA, and joined immediately. It's opened all kinds of doors.

The biggest door the club opened for me was steering me into license plate restoration, and quite by accident. I had been redoing plates for my own collection for years, but it wasn't until Mike Parker came over to my house right after I joined the club and saw some of the plates I had restored hanging up in my rec room. He said, "Son, you have a God given talent. You need to do this professionally."

That thought had never occurred to me, and without even trying, through word of mouth, guys started contacting me wanting me to do their plates. One thing led to another and in less than a year I had more business than I could take care of. Several years later I basically was restoring California plates only, mainly the '63 black base issue. I had hooked up with several car clubs out there and plates were flying back and forth from California to Georgia on a daily basis. I learned that these car guys didn't own just one car, many of them had fleets of cars. So the repeat business was really keeping me busy. I had so much business that I got Mike Forbes on board, and Mike was doing some of the severely damaged plates because he had more time to spend on these road kill tags than I did. (plus Mike was better at the repairs than I was) So I'd bead blast them down to bare metal, send them off to Mike in Virginia, he'd get them straightened out and repaired, send them back to me in primer ready for me to finish up with the painting and lettering. We had it going on. And literally would take on any tag, no matter the condition.

After a full 20 years of doing nothing but restorations, I found it time to hang up the paint gun and concentrate on my license plate store. And although it says all over my website that I'm retired now, I still get several emails a week requesting plate restoration. I only wish I had the time to take on these tags, but I needed a slower pace now that I'm in the fourth quarter of life. So now I'm out there digging up inventory for my tag store. It's fun, and it keeps me just busy enough to still enjoy retirement.

In closing, I encourage you to join ALPCA where you'll come in contact with many other collectors, and have access to plate meets where you meet folks that have like minds. But more importantly, it's the people you meet along the way that make this such a great hobby. Many life long friendships are made which truly does make this the most enjoyable hobby ever! Now go out there, have some fun and pick up a few tags!

Over the years I have attended National plate meets in Huntsville, AL, ~ Ft. Wayne, Ind, ~ Knoxville, Tenn, ~ Covington, KY and Hampton, VA. Other meets I've been to include Marietta, GA, ~ Cleveland, Tenn. ~ Lake Junaluska, NC. ~ Crossville, Tenn, ~ Columbia, SC, ~ Spartanburg, SC, ~ Tryon, NC and for several years I co-hosted the Georgia tag meet along with Mike Parker in Avondale Estates, GA before the meet moved to Marietta.