Honk If You Can Read This

This week's objets d'eBay — first the Florida dad plate and then the Pops from Nebraska — may just seem like someone bragging from beneath their trunk. And maybe they are.

They might alternately be considered, however, as part of hobby a father can hand down to his child. A hobby that like any a dad passes to a child may lead — as it did John Northrup, who received 12 plates from his father — to a lifelong obsession (Northrup has held more than 20,000 of his own plates) and even a bit of notoriety, (Northrup is now author of a license plate book).