A MOTORIST has shared how he made “hundreds of thousands” by buying and selling car number plates.
Neal Bircher, 60, has collected hundreds of plates worth gargantuan sums and currently has around 350 in the garage at his home in Uxbridge, London, and owns the rights to 220 more.
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The DVLA is auctioning 2,000 car number plates in its latest sale – and an expert has revealed the best buys.
The latest auctions of personalised registrations starts on Wednesday at 10am.
Plates expert Neal has identified which plates to keep your eye on.
He says that dateless plates – those with a number at the start or the end – dateless plates with a single letter and shorter plates with common initials are where the money is.
For example, Neal believes 910 AM – which has a starting price of £2200 – will attract more interest thanks to the popularity of ‘AM’ as a set of initials, wheresas 232 XW – also with a starting price of £2200 – won’t have as many buyers.
In terms of plates less likely to grow, Northern Irish style plates, containing the letters’ ‘I’ and ‘Z’ are at the lower end of the market.
Neal, an IT management consultant and part-time plate dealer, said: “As a general rule, the shorter the better, and also the popularity of initials is a very common factor.
“‘Dateless plates are always popular and can be good investments.
“‘1’ plates have proved very good investments, whatever the letters, and so plates such as 1 XDX will be expensive even though ‘XDX’ is unlikely to be many people’s initials.
“1 YOB starting at £2400 is an interesting one – reminiscent of ‘YOB 1’ which famously adorned Slade guitarist Dave Hill’s Rolls-Royce in the 1970s!
“In recent years dateless plates that contain only a single letter have become more sought after – for example 125 B starting at £2500, or 8118 D starting at £2500 in this auction.
“And those where the letter is ‘O’, and hence the plate can look as if it only contain numbers, have really grown in popularity of late.
“Hence 54 O starting at £2500 might well fetch the top price in this action. ‘540’ is also a model of BMW.”
According to Neal, a common misconception is just because a plate might look like it spells a word, it doesn’t mean it’s valuable.
He said: “People sometimes assume that if a plate looks as if it spells a word then it will prove valuable.
“That may well be the case if the word is relevant to a business or profession, but if it’s just a random word then not necessarily so.
“Registration numbers generally tend to grow in value, but the ones less likely to do so are those at the lower end of the market, especially some of the Northern Irish style plates, containing the letters’ ‘I’ and ‘Z’.
“But there can be exceptions with those as well.”
Having bought and sold for much of his life, Neal has urged people to be cautious before entering the number plate game.
He added: “People who are trying to make money have to be very careful.
“It requires a lot of homework if you’re looking to invest or make money.
“Two very similar-looking plates might have very different values.
“AJB would be worth far more than XUY for example because of how common the first set is for initials.
“Not everyone is, but some are interested in the backstory behind plates.
“There are a lot of people who are in clubs and associations who ask me a lot of questions every day about value and the history of plates.
“People are very interested in when it was issued, to know what vehicles it was in, who owned it etc.”
The DVLA number plate auction
The DVLA is auctioning some highly coveted number plates on May 14
The plates range from £300 to over £2000, as drivers clamour to get a unique number for their motor.
Bids can only be placed at the auction or through the DVLA website.
The plates on sale on May 14 include:
- CIG 300 Lot 324 Starting price £300
- AB16 BUM Lot 18 Starting price £250
- MOU 555E Lot 119 Starting price £250
- PO25 CHE Lot 1390 Starting price £250
- F44 YYE Lot 639 Starting price £200
- A96 COX Lot 31 Starting price £200
- A600 DAY Lot 35 Starting price £200
- CR16 PTO Lot 372 Starting price £250
- SAV 146E Lot 1586 Starting price £250
- EA69 GLE Lot 509 Starting price £250
- OOH 11H Lot 1336 Starting price £300
- FAM 1T Lot 583 Starting price £500
- 145 SAM Lot 1578 Starting price £800
- 77 JET Lot 840 Starting pricd £1200
- 36 ANT Lot 116 Starting price £1200
- DMZ 1 Lot 457 Starting price £2000
- 910 AM Lot 92 Starting price £2200
- 1 YOB Lot 1991 Starting price £2400
- 1 LTR Lot 1075 Starting price £2400
- 54 O Lot 1309 Starting price £2500
- 2025 M Lot 1096 Starting price £2500