I was talking to a friend of mine that lived over in the UK for awhile for business. The family was relocated there for a couple of years. They are a bit older than me and were there in the 1980s. The subject actually turned to music as far as what was popular in the US versus the UK. I remembered a few years ago that someone tried to auction off their cell phone number because it was the same number mentioned in the song Jenny, Jenny (867-5309). She said that ported cell phone numbers were not the thing that was selling in the United Kingdom, it was license plate numbers.
It is apparently desirable for some people to have an ageless number. More recently, license plates numbers contain a code that tells you what year it was issued. In ageless, older plates, there is no indicator and people find them desirable. They are willing to pay sometimes great sums for them. Northumbrian Numbers has a wide selection of ageless plates and cherished plates. Some of them are going for over a thousand pounds! A Cherished plate is a vanity plate. In fact, one of the highest sums paid was one that read K1 NGS . It was purchased by the Sultan of Brunei for 231,000 pounds in the 1990s.
Of course, the Secretary of State in my home state would never let this go on. I bet they would say that the license numbers are not personal property, and in the United Kingdom it is the same way, but you buy the rights to register it unless revoked, and the transfer is handled by a company such as Northumbrian that acts as the broker. Because British plates have fewer characters in some cases than US plates, and you have a set sequence of letters and numbers, it is harder to spell a word on a plate, so that is perhaps why the ones that do say something are more precious.
If I had a thousand dollars I probably wouldn’t buy a license plate, but it still gives me some ideas to consider. I wonder if someone could sell one and donate the proceeds to charity of the plate spelled something related to the cause.
This sweet, sweet lady is formerly an expectant momma. She is at Heard County Animal Control, and has given birth, so far, to nine adorable puppies on the cold shelter floor. She has a rescue that has said YES to her. Only one problem. They are all the way in South Carolina, all the way almost to the North Carolina border. We need a volunteer or two!