Rob England and Tom Moseley
BBC News
Neal Bircher
Neal Bircher with a digital plate representing the Gloucestershire, the county of his birth
Sales of personalized license plates have more than doubled in the last decade, suggest the figures obtained by the BBC.
More than 1.2 million transactions took place in 2024, against around 500,000 in 2014, according to data from the driver and the vehicle license agency (DVLA).
This includes plates bought directly from DVLA, as well as those that change hands in private. Plates can be purchased for less than £ 50 – but the most lucrative combinations can get hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Experts have said that BBC private plaques were increasingly considered an investment – often even not being used on a car.
The value of private numbers depends on the popularity of the combination of numbers and letters.
The DVLA raised 276 million pounds sterling for the government of personalized registrations during the last financial year.
‘I will buy more’
Rob Nicholls from Exeter has a digital plate with its initials on its BMW, and recently bought two other plates which it did not use, selling them rather for a profit.
“They seem to be more and more popular,” he said on the BBC Radio 4 You and Yours program.
Rob, who works as finance director, says that commercial plates were a “funny touch” to have in parallel with his day job.
“I know they are annoying some people, others don’t like them,” he said.
“Is there a value? Yes. Can it increase in value? Yes. I will probably buy more because it is an interesting and tangible asset.”
Rob Nicholls
Rob thinks that people buy plates in part because they have a sentimental value, but many consider them as active.
‘It’s all about image’
Another area of growth is among young people, thinks that Noor Dar.
Manchester’s 17 -year -old man likes to decipher messages behind plates – sentences like you 105T are popular – and travels the Facebook groups where different combinations are shared.
“It’s all about image,” he said.
“There are two sides, I think. Yes, you have collectors, people who buy expensive plates. Then there is the young generation, who does not care about the plates that are precious – they want plates of sense.
“On social networks, people on the car scene are often known by their license plates.”
Personalized digital plates that have never been used before can be purchased directly from the DVLA via its website or online auctions.
The number of plates put on a car for the first time has almost doubled since 2014 at just under 450,000, according to the figures obtained by the BBC via a request for freedom of information.
The agency says it has a bank of more than 60 million registrations. He also has a team that analyzes market trends to identify the lucrative registrations he can release to earn the most money.
But that does not include combinations of numbers and letters that DVLA thinks “can cause, embarrassment or bad taste”, which are refused.
Meanwhile, the plates that are already in circulation can be purchased from third -party dealers, which sell at private auctions and their websites.
The plates are also exchanged on Facebook and Ebay groups.
The market for these previously used plates is the area that has potentially experienced the greatest increase.
Since 2014, the number of these transactions has tripled at around 800,000, according to DVLA figures.
The data include the plates sold and those that have put vehicles or removed. It may also include applications to modify the owner’s details, such as their address.
‘£25 to hundreds of thousands’
Mark Reynolds, sales director at Plate Hunter, one of the many private dealers, says that he sold the KS1 license plate just before Christmas for £ 285,000 to an anonymous buyer with the same initials.
“I think there was once there was an element of pretension to digital plates, which, I think, disappeared, because you can pick up a digital plaque as cheap as £ 25 to hundreds of thousands “He said.
“So I think the market is so much more accessible to everyone.”
Neal Bircher, who describes himself as a “Number Plates Nerd”, has collected them all his adult life and is writing a book on the subject.
Neal Bircher
Neal Bircher’s mother Anthea also has private plates
In addition to a current collection of around 220, most of which are for sale, Neal has plates representing his first and second names, as well as GL05 for the Gloucestershire, the county where he was born.
He says that in a distant past, the DVLA had seen personalized plates like a disadvantage, but in the 1990s, he changed his mind and chose to engage with trade, which makes his vast basin of unused recording available to the public.
DVLA figures show that transactions culminated in 2021, that Neal is setting up for lifestyle changes caused by COVID.
“Presumably, it is due to the fact that many people have time by hand and money to save that they did not spend to shuttle, socialization and holidays,” he said.
“The momentum continued throughout the cocovable period and even today, the interest has only stopped a little.”
But, despite the popularity of private plates, Neal warns that it is not always easy to make money with them.
“Many people are getting,” he said.
“I invite anyone to go with a little caution, because I have seen many examples of people who think” Gosh, it’s easy “and then buy a treasure of plates and maybe that They are not all salable. “
