I attempted to collect license plates, myself, briefly. My plan was to build a whimsical, cabin-y looking shed and roof it with plates. I still love the idea, but I had/have too much on my plate so the idea fell by the wayside. I would love to run into a pile of a couple hundred somewhere, someday. That would make it easy. I even put an add on Craigslist, asking for them once. I thought it was odd that I got more than one person who thought I was planning to try using them.
In '08 I visited a bar in the middle of BFE Austria with American plates on the wall. It was really neat, to be so far from home and run into that... When I got home I sent the owner one 1974 Minnesota plate from my matching set, as promised. He gave me a shot of some regional berry schnapps while I was there so I had to follow through. :)
And those are my plates stories! :)