Way more interesting than Bitcoin, or gold bars languishing in some vault

The corrected form V5C (showing that OO15 SHE belonged to Miss Lucy Melford) came back quite quickly. Next day I went down to Caffyns Volvo at Eastbourne and got them to make up new plates for Sophie, and fit them for me. I also brought away a spare rear plate to stick on the caravan, which at that moment was with the dealer at Ashington for a service and other work. Here I am, posing with a rear plate at Caffyns, salesman Harrison taking the picture with my phone:

The plate looked a bit cloudy because its protective film hadn't yet been peeled off. It soon was. I sped off to the Hillier Garden Centre a few miles away for a spot of lunch, feeling very conspicuous. 

And I dare say some people would have noticed the new registration, but not very many. It seems to me that people drive around fully preoccupied with their own thoughts, and really it's only in slow traffic queues, and in car parks, that fancy number plates are ever likely to catch the eye and get remarked upon. In any case, as I've explained before, the prime reason for wanting a plate like this is not to draw attention to myself, but to make Sophie (otherwise just another anonymous grey car) stand out from all the other grey cars around. The registration she now has is also very easy to remember, which is an advantage when using a parking machine that insists you press umpteen buttons to input the registration number when buying a ticket. 

Despite my denial of any show-off motive, I am very pleased with the new plate. This was the finishing touch my new chariot needed. I'm minded to keep this plate for all my other cars in the future. With that in mind, Sophie's original plates have been carefully put away for that time - six or seven years hence - when I'll be looking for my next car. 

Just before the trade-in, I'll ask the DVLA online to put OO15 SHE on ice and reinstate KR16 WFX. The instant that is done, the original plates have to be fixed onto the car. Then at my leisure, I can transfer OO15 SHE to my next car. 

I'd better confess that throughout my life I've been fascinated with car registration numbers, and have always had an eye cocked for anything unusual. That's how I managed to spot 'A1' - one of the very first, if not actually the first, numbers issued back in 1903. I saw it in December 1992 at Seaford, on a rather humdrum (and grubby) Rover Sterling:

This prestige number, which deserved to be on a much more illustrious car, was probably being 'carried' by the Rover for just a short while, and would soon (as intended) end up on a Rolls Royce or similar. 1992 was well before the days of simple and easy online transfers. Moving plates from one vehicle to another meant a mass of paperwork, and you'd need a vehicle to park the plate on, in between the old and new limousines.

Perhaps A1 was so eye-catching that nobody could miss it. But I believe my own powers of observation are keener than the average, and I always think this following episode is the proof. In the later 1980s I began driving a Nissan Micra, F807 FGT. It was a great little car, and I drove it for years, but I always thought its registration number was somewhat nondescript. Nevertheless this was no barrier to my spotting the car that bore the very next number, F808 FGT. This was in May 1995, at Woolacombe in North Devon. I was about to drive past, then saw it, stopped, and took a few photos:

The other car was also a Nissan, and must have come originally from the same dealer in London. The owner of the other car wasn't around - disappointing! - and so I drove on. But I think these pictures back up my assertion of having eagle eyes - for car number plates anyway!

And what a coincidence, that both cars should end up at the same seaside resort, on the same day...how I wish I could have talked to the other car's owner.

I'm unlikely to have a repeat performance with OO15 SHE. When I last looked, OO14 SHE and OO16 SHE were still available for purchase, and I'm thinking that they may remain unsold indefinitely. Despite being very number-plate aware, I've never yet spotted a SHE registration. There must be some around, but they seem to be extraordinarily rare. I've seen some HER registrations, most recently in September 2022 at Montrose in Scotland, on this Audi: 

But no SHEs. It may be that SHE registrations are not the first choice of the average lady looking for a personalised number plate, who may be concerned about a negative reaction from a certain kind of male motorist. Certainly, SHE plates make a statement. But the simple reason might just be that no man is going to buy a SHE plate for his own car. And if he buys one for his wife or girlfriend he is more likely to go for something that spells out her name.

I did wonder what kind of lady owned that Audi, and put FM11 HER on it. My guess is an independently-minded professional lady of some consequence. 

Many plates you see offered for sale on the Internet - there are several websites, as well as the DVLA itself - attempt to spell out a name, or a particular word, not often with great success in my view. There has grown up a letter/number equivalence, so that - for instance - the number 3 can be taken to be an E, and 4 can be a A, and 5 can be an S. It isn't a perfect correspondence by any means. Personally, I think it leads to some very obscure or contrived names or words. And yet people will pay very good money for some of these plates. Here's a selection that I saw recently:

The fact that these were discounted suggests that the seller had not found many buyers, and I'm not surprised. Even the discounted price is a small fortune. 

The DVLA have a huge selection of unissued plates that you can buy for a few hundred pounds. But they do try to identify plates that might sell for considerably more in one of their regular auctions. The idea is that the proceeds from these auctioned plates will raise money for the Treasury, and relieve the taxpayer of a little tax. One website, Regtransfer.co.uk - apparently one of the oldest and largest - has sent me details of the October 2023 DVLA auction, the last held 'live' at a hotel so that you could physically attend. (The November 2023 auction was entirely online, as will be all those to come) The October auction revealed what some of the more desirable kinds of plate actually sold for, and possibly why:

Gosh, he does look emotional! There's clearly more to this plate-selling business than meets the eye. Now look at what these plates made.

There you go. This one auction raked in over £4 million for the Treasury. Here's the full roll call:

You frequently see plates like the ones above on Range Rovers and the like. Now you know what the drivers might have paid for them.

I hasten to assure my readers that I didn't lash out anything like £11,000 for OO15 SHE. It was admittedly the most expensive plate I've ever bought, but it cost less than £1,000 by a clear margin. That said, I do wonder that the DVLA didn't see any 'auction potential' in it. Or if not the DVLA, then one of the independent online firms, who are always on the lookout for plates they can sell at a profit. 

These firms will tell you that the right number plate is a sound investment, as generally speaking they have always increased in value. I certainly didn't buy mine as an investment, but I do feel I'm unlikely to lose money on it. In any case, a number plate is fun to own - more than can be said of Bitcoin or a gold bar. Besides, ownership of a registration plate is not going to significantly harm the planet.

I'm simply going to enjoy displaying my new plate, and not see it as a means of making money. It doesn't matter if nobody ever takes much notice. It does matter however that I won't easily forget what the registration number of my car is, and can spot it from a hundred yards.

By the way, it looks fine on the back of my caravan, as well as the front end of Sophie.