The Top 10 UK Most Expensive Number Plates

In the UK there is a healthy interest in personalised number plates and it is clear that prices are increasing despite economic uncertainty. It would seem that a trend has been developing for some time in the acquisition of personalised number plates for investment purposes rather than for vanity.

Recent sales at auctions and the increasing prices seen at auctions provide a measure of the increasing appetite for investing large sums of money in a cherished number plate. Cherished number plate is the term used to describe dateless registrations issued to vehicles between 1903 and 1963 and it is these items of UK history that are increasing in value the most.

Recent examples of cherished number plates and the prices reached at auctions bear testament to the value placed on these intangible assets.

Many of these cherished number plates are now worth multiples of the prices achieved at auctions with the most notable being F 1 currently speculatively valued in excess of £20 million.

It would seem that the sums of money people are willing to exchange for entitlement to these prestigious number plates has no bounds and it is for this reason that they make an attractive investment for the future.

What Determines the Value of a Number Plate?

Name related number plates are the most popular and the most sought after, closely followed by people's name initials. In choosing a private number plate as an investment you need to identify the most popular names and the most popular initials for people. It is not widely known but the most popular initials are JB in the United Kingdom.

Dateless number plates are the most prestigious and sought after by people with the largest sums of money available to invest. The very early combinations from 1904 are rapidly increasing in value and there are several examples of single letter, single digit combinations demanding £millions at auction.

The history of a number plate adds value to the number, particularly if the number plate has been owned by someone rich or famous or if the number has been assigned to a famous vehicle with iconic meaning to the public. You need to research the history of a number plate to see if there is history that increases its value.

The shorter the number the more valuable the number plate. Less is more when it comes to private number plates and the more distinctive the number is due to its shortness the more money it will attract from investors.

The number of permutations available is an indicator of the supply volumes. In essence there are only two registration plates with the number 1 when it comes to a dateless number plate with either two or three letters, whereas other random numbers are more readily available. The lower the supply volume for a specific format then the higher the value.

The degree to which a number plate represents someone's name and the accuracy of the number plate to the name is a factor that increases the value. As an example DAV 1D is worth more than DAV 11D as the combination of number and letters is an exact match with the spelling of the name DAVID.