A century after the first car number plate was registered in Britain, the hunt is on to find the very first one, which is valued at £500,000. Nick Foley reports.
Earl Russell camped outside the London Council office building all night in 1903 to secure the now legendary A1 plate, which the British Retail Motor Industry Federation is desperately trying to trace to mark the plates' landmark birthday.
The trade in historic and personalised plates is now a multi-million pound industry which is cashing in on our vanities, idiosyncrasies and sense of humour.
Ruby Speechley, PR manager for plate trading company www.regtransfers.co.uk, reveals that a businessman paid £46,500 for the plate APR1L, while 80SS (Boss) sold for £31,000. But why are people willing to pay the price of a house for a registration number?
Speechley, author of Fanatical About Number Plates, explains the number plate can trigger some pretty extreme emotions from enthusiasts.
"The plates can mean a lot to people," she says. "It's often been their life long ambition to have a particular plate." People can become obsessive about tracking down a plate with a specific personal or sentimental significance, she says.
Businessman Bill Spence, for instance, recently bought the plate BS1 for £90,000 not only because it used his initials but because it was originally registered in Orkney where he was from.
"The industry has been further fuelled by investors who are looking to snap up plates which are associated with emerging trends, or those linked to famous people who they might be able to sell them onto at a vast profit."
Sharp-witted speculators in recent years have made small fortunes from buying and then selling plates with the number 786, which has a special religious significance to muslims.
Speechley says people are now buying plates as a long term investment and is in no doubt that there's big money to be made from the trade.
The number plate trading company she works for sold the 57EEL plate last year for £10,000 but it is now estimated to be worth £49,000, whilst 70NYS has increased in value from £14,000 in 2001 to £37,500.
A car registration plate sold for a record price in the North of £40,000 last Monday. A businessman from Co Fermanagh also paid an additional £12,000 in VAT and other fees before leaving an auction room near Belfast with the WIL 1 number. ... - Reuters/PA