Personalised Number Plates for UK Motorists

111 JJJ - Stand Out from the Crowd

2008-06-16T13:35:00.004Z

We are pleased to be able to offer for sale the very attractive private number plate 111 JJJ. You don't often get a to see a more eye catching plate than this one.

111 JJJ is available for purchase exclusively via Simply Registrations priced at £8,000.

http://www.simplyreg.com/private-number-plate/111JJJ/770

DVLA Auction - June 2008

2008-06-16T13:11:00.003Z

DVLA held its third auction of the year at Wychwood Park, Crewe a couple of weeks ago.

The top prices were:

HU57 LER - £19,500
CLA 51C - £15,500
8 PJS - £13,700
1 LGS - £13,600
8 DSS - £13,500
1 NEP - £13,400
49 J - £13,000
888 P - £11,200
48 M - £11,000
72 S - £11,000

Many industries are predicting tough times ahead and certain sectors of the stock market, namely Banks and House Builders have seen their share prices plummet. Whilst there has been a slight softening in the personalised registrations market, most of the dealers I spoke to at the Crewe Auction were upbeat and happy with current levels of sales and enquiries.

The big test will be the coming summer months. A good indicator will be prices achieved at the next DVLA auction to be held at Legoland in Windsor, Berkshire in August.

If you can't wait until August, have a look at http://www.simplyreg.com/ and see if we already have what you are waiting for!

DVLA Auction - April 2008

2008-06-16T12:58:00.002Z

The DVLA held its second auction of 2008 at the Celtic Manor Hotel, Newport, Gwent in April.

The registrations sold for the highest amounts are shown below:

WEL 5H - £27,200

1 HEL - £22,000

63 AC - £19,700

1 SLW - £18,000

42 E - £15,700

1 LCH - £15,500

1 NCW - £15,200

63 GC - £13,600

88 AM - £13,600

1 CFG - £13,000

There has been a lot of talk of a credit crunch, but people are still prepared to shell out good money for good registrations. Long may it continue!

DVLA Auction - February 2008

2008-03-01T23:30:00.002Z

DVLA held its first auction of 2008 in Claverdon, Warwickshire last month.

The Top Prices were:

4 DAM - £29,000
RUB 1Y - £21,000
SSS 9 - £18,400
1 EJG - £15,000
63 MB - £14,000
68 JM - £14,000

There are certain letter combinations that cannot be offered for sale by DVLA at auction. This is because the letter combination was issued naturally by a Local Licensing Authority. DVLA can only sell previously unissued registrations.

The JG combination is a good example. The JG combination was issued by Canterbury C.B.C. starting with JG 1 back in March 1929. It was November of 1937 by the time Canterbury had used up the JG combination followed by numbers, the final number to be issued was JG 9999.

Then in September 1963 Canterbury began using the JG combination again, this time with the numbers first, starting with 1 JG. The final number in the sequence to be issued was 1473 JG. Canterbury then began using the suffix letter system in 1963, along with the rest of the country.

This means that DVLA cannot issue any JG registrations at auction followed by numbers. DVLA can however offer the numbers 1474 - 9999 followed by JG. Indeed a quick search shows that several attractive numerical sequences have been already used:

http://www.dvla-som.co.uk/home/en/Search/p/auction?searched=yes&plate=jg&x=34&y=9

So what does this mean to the potential owner of 48 JG? The bad news is that it will be an expensive registration as there are very few two digit JG registrations still live in the system. The good news is that 48 JG should always hold its value, as DVLA cannot flood the market with similar registrations.

48 JG is available for purchase from www.simplyreg.com at £10,000.

Struggling for Gift Ideas?

2007-11-18T20:16:00.000Z

What do you buy the person who already has everything? Well, not everything, but I guess you know what I am talking about.

The festive season is upon us once again and that means buying gifts and presents. The secret is to choose something that will really be appreciated, rather than something that will end up in the charity bag a few months down the line.

What if there was a gift that would provide pleasure just by looking at it every day? Something that would at worst hold its value, and possibly increase in value over time? Something that would last for many years and never look tired or worn? Have you guessed what it is yet?

A personalised number plate of course!

Okay, possibly not suitable for everyone, but a lot of people will receive a truly unique gift this Christmas. As one client put it, "It was like that new car feeling, without the new car!"

We are definitely noticing a new trend here at Simply Registrations. Husbands buying for their wives, sons buying for their fathers and even parents buying for young children as future investments. There is also nothing wrong in treating yourself.

Why not mouse over to www.simplyreg.com and see if there's one for you. It certainly beats another pair of novelty socks!

DVLA Auction October 2007

2007-10-31T22:33:00.000Z

It seems West Ham supporters have deeper pockets than Arsenal fans.

At the DVLA Auction in Bishop's Stortford this week WE57 HAM was sold for an amazing £57,000. This beats the highest price previously paid for a football club registration which was £36,000 for AR53 NAL in 2004.

Damian Lawson, Marketing Manager for Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency Personalised Registrations commented "The atmosphere in the auction room was electric - it was like a cup final."

"The fans bidding showed the same passion they do on the terraces and we could only watch as the price kept on rising and rising," he added.

The winning bidders identity is a mystery, as he or she placed their bid anonymously via the internet.

If the winning bidder would like to contact us, we at Simply Registrations would love to know the background story behind this purchase.

DVLA Auction September 2007

2007-09-11T21:51:00.000Z

DVLA held its fourth auction of 2007 last week at The Dormy House Hotel in Worcestershire. Prices again were very strong which is always a good sign for the number plate industry.

The Top Prices were:

111 S - £31,000
67 A - £17,800
551 KHS - £17,100
65 M - £14,900
51 NCH - £14,500
1 LHR - £13,700
32 RED - £13,400
1 PLA - £13,000
LVS 1 - £13,000
2 WBA - £12,200
1 LAH - £12,200

The prices achieved were even more remarkable when you consider the uncertainty surrounding the financial markets at present. The consumer debt situation is causing jitters across the globe and is affecting many different industries. It is amazing that personalised number plates seem to be bucking the trend as people continue to pile thousands of pounds into cherished registrations.

The next DVLA Auction will be held at Down Hall in Bishop's Stortford on October 24th, 25th and 26th 2007. To view a list of registrations going under the hammer click over to http://www.dvla-som.co.uk/home/en/Auction/p/next

If you cannot wait until then, have we got what you are looking for? Have a look at http://www.simplyreg.com/cherished-number-plate/stock

Join The Club

2007-08-27T21:05:00.000Z

Are you really serious about number plate ownership?

If so, The Registration Numbers Club may be for you. It was formed in 1977, is run by a team of enthusiasts and produces a quarterly newsletter for all members. The highlight of the year is the RNC Rally where members meet up for a fun weekend.

The UK club for cherished number enthusiasts is always looking to add more members. More details can be found by visiting their website.

Link to The Registration Numbers Club http://www.registrationnumbersclub.org.uk/

I've Sold My Car - What About My Registration?

2007-08-16T21:29:00.000Z

One of the joys of processing lots of number plate transfers is spending many hours at The DVLA Local Office in Leeds. There is generally a good mix of motor dealers and general members of the public all with different questions and enquiries.

Often someone will approach the counter at their turn and advise that they have sold their car but they want to keep their personalised registration that is currently displayed on the vehicle. They are generally horrified to learn that it will mean a four week wait for a new V5c Registration Certificate, often called a logbook.

If you have a cherished registration that you intend to keep and are thinking of selling your car, it is a good idea to plan ahead. There are two options available to you, either transfer your registration to another vehicle or apply for retention. Transferring to another vehicle is fairly straightforward providing you have the V5c's for both vehicles, m.o.t. certificates (if applicable) and both vehicles are taxed. The fee is eighty pounds and it generally takes four weeks to complete.

If you do not want to transfer your cherished registration to another vehicle you can apply for retention. Your request to DVLA is to separate the registration from the car and hold it on an official DVLA document called a V778 Retention Document. Again you need the V5c, m.o.t. if the car is more than three years old and the car should be taxed. The fee is one hundred and five pounds which covers the eighty pounds transfer fee plus a twenty-five pounds administration fee. The retention document is valid for twelve months and can be extended every additional year for a fee of twenty-five pounds. Again you will have to wait about four weeks for the new V5c to come through for your car.

The moral of the story here is to take care of your number plate transfer at least four weeks before you plan to sell your car. Very few people are prepared to buy a car without a V5c Registration Certificate (logbook) unless they know you well.

Link to DirectGov website for more information on transferring a registration mark http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSellingAVehicle/PersonalisedRegAndNumberPlates/DG_4022576

Increase Your Sex Appeal

2007-08-10T14:59:00.000Z

No this is not an advert for a miracle fragrance that will have admirers flocking at your feet, but more to do with why people buy certain items. I read an article recently which explained that it is good to know why your customers buy from you.

What has all of this got to do with personalised number plates you may ask? Well according to Robert Warlow of Small Business Success, a purchase is the result of satisfying a need, want or desire.

I believe that personalised number plates fall into the 'desires' category. See if you agree, here is how Robert explains it:

"Desires spring from emotions. If someone has a burning desire to satisfy, then logic more or less flies out of the window!"

"If you are in the business of satisfying desires then you are probably selling niche products or services. You are focused on people who are happy to pay a premium to get what they want."

Robert explains the desire motivators as:

* Sex appeal
* To improve social standing – not just keeping up with the Joneses but to be better
* To demonstrate love
* To gain prestige or to impress
* To be popular
* Regaining a forgotten youth

If you already own a personalised number plate, did any of these factors influence your decision to buy? Be honest!

Robert Warlow of Small Business Success is author of the article 'Increase Your Profits by Knowing Why Your Customers Buy'. For more information visit http://www.smallbusinesssuccess.biz

Desperately Seeking Jan

2007-08-04T12:56:00.000Z

Someone out there is very interested in this registration. As mentioned in an earlier post, we circulate our stock list of number plates to all other active dealers in the trade on a monthly basis. This week three different dealers contacted us to confirm the availability of JAN 677.

There are two possibilities here. Firstly, it may be pure coincidence and three different individuals have all enquired about the same registration in a matter of days. Secondly and much more likely, the same person is ringing round the dealers to try and get this fantastic registration at the most competitive price.

As they say in all the best commercials, come to us and buy direct. Cut out the middleman and you could save hundreds of pounds. JAN 677 is still available, but for how much longer?

If you would like to be first to find out about new registrations that we take into stock, any deletions or price changes, please send us a quick message using the contact form (link shown below) on our website. We circulate a list which generally goes out by email at the start of the month. We promise not to bombard you with junk, you will only receive twelve emails a year.

Link to contact form: http://www.simplyreg.com/personalised-number-plate/contact

Do you have a Nice-Reg?

2007-08-01T23:24:00.000Z

There are lots of number plate information websites out there, but in our opinion Nice-Reg is certainly one of the best.

There are tons of great photos, useful articles and links to other similar websites. The site is maintained by David, a self confessed number plates enthusiast.

Click over to Nice-Reg now, even if it is just to drool over the Ferrari's!

Link to Nice-Reg: http://www.nice-reg.co.uk/

Happy Birthday - 36 CEL

2007-07-26T23:19:00.000Z

How long does it normally take to sell a registration? If you tried to figure it out you would probably go crazy.

This week one of our stock number plates will celebrate its fifth birthday. Forgive me if I choose not to raise a glass to 36 CEL on its anniversary. It puzzles me why after five years we still own it! I do not think it is unreasonably priced at £2600 and it is ideal for the names Celina, Celia, Cecilia, as well as Toyota Celica owners, Celtic fans or plain old Chris Edward Lewis.

This industry is great for proving you wrong. You get offered what appears to be a great registration number that you expect to fly away, so naturally you give good money for it. Five years later you are cursing the day you parted with your hard earned cash. Then you reluctantly accept a terrible combination of letters in part-exchange for a more expensive number plate you want to sell. As soon as the unattractive registration number is added to the website you receive a flurry of enquiries, agree a sale and the phone continues to ring even after it is marked as 'under offer' on the website!

Oh well, some you win, some you learn.

Incidentally, if the registration number 36 CEL is of interest, please give me a call on 01924 823781. Don't be too surprised if I yell out HALLELUJAH! when we complete the transaction.

That's Got to be Worth a Few Hundred Quid!

2007-07-21T21:17:00.000Z

When we launched the Simply Registrations website, the aim was to attract more potential customers. Little did we know that it would attract far more enquiries from individuals wanting to sell their private number plates to us, rather than them wanting to buy from us.

One of the main contributing factors to this is the DVLA Personalised Registrations scheme. With the new car comes the optional extras, £600 for air conditioning, £500 for alloy wheels and £250 for N77 AKB, an off the shelf registration direct from DVLA. It's all part of the salesperson's job to up sell and the number plate presents another opportunity to increase the commission on the deal.

A few years down the line the number plate stays with the car when its current owner decides it is time for something new to decorate the front drive. The car's new owner happens to mention to a bloke in the pub that her new car came complete with a personalised registration. "That's got to be worth a few hundred quid" the bloke in the pub informs her. "In fact, I bet it's worth at least a grand 'cause it will have gone up in value". The new owner is ecstatic and the next day she telephones a few number plate dealers eager to cash in on her new found treasure.

It is not nice to have to give someone disappointing news, especially after their hopes have been built up. Quite often the person on the other end of the telephone has already decided how they are going to spend their unexpected windfall. Generally there are lots of similar registrations still available from DVLA for £250. Indeed there are still twenty-nine similar 'N' prefix registrations followed by the letters 'AKB'. If you consider the other prefix letters, there are five-hundred and six AKB's at the time of writing.

Very seldom will the number plate be worth a huge amount when it has been left on the car by the previous owner. It costs £80 to transfer a number plate from one vehicle to another. If the number plate really was worth £1000, surely the previous owner would have paid £80 to hang on to their investment. The general rules is, if the number plate came with the car, it is probably worth no more now than on the day it was bought.

As with all rules, there are exceptions. If your car came with a number plate and it seems all similar combinations have already been sold by DVLA, ring round a few dealers. It could be worth a few hundred quid!

Link to DVLA Personalised Registrations http://www.dvla-som.co.uk/

Seeing Double

2007-07-12T16:57:00.000Z

One of the most popular questions asked by the curious individuals that trawl the adverts and websites of number plate dealers is "How come I keep seeing the same registration number being offered for sale by two or three different companies?"

There are two possible reasons for this. Let's take John Goodall for example, he owns the number plate 48 JG and decides he wants to to sell it. He may approach several number plate dealers and ask them to sell 48 JG on his behalf. Each dealer will value the plate accordingly and request permission from John to offer it for sale in their adverts and list it on their websites. You may then be flicking through the motoring section of your favourite Sunday newspaper and notice John's number plate for sale in two different advertisements.

The other scenario is that John wants to cash in on the value of his number plate quickly. Rather than wait for a private buyer to come along, he accepts a lower price from the dealer who offers to buy it outright. John gets his money quickly and the dealer has a new number plate for his own stock.

It is common practice for dealers to circulate their stock within the trade, which again may explain why 48 JG appears in several dealers' adverts. The task for the buyer is to locate which dealer actually owns the number plate and buy it direct, rather than risk paying a commission to the re-seller.

Click over to http://www.simplyreg.com/cherished-number-plate/stock to view our full stock list of available registrations.

Which Chief Executive Officer Has the Biggest Ego?

2007-07-10T12:24:00.000Z

The private number plate CEO 1 is currently being offered for sale via auction website Ebay. There is obviously a lot of interest in this particular, very unique registration and with less than a day to go the highest bid is over £154,000 (one hundred and fifty-four thousand pounds). Here is another example of big money moving into an enjoyable and appreciating asset.

We are often reminded of the excellent investment characteristics of unique personalised number plates by our clients. A typical example would be the couple who have decided to retire abroad to enjoy the sunshine and relaxed lifestyle experienced by our Mediterranean cousins. They have owned their cherished registration for the last ten years and had the pleasure of seeing it everyday on the various cars they have kept. It is now time to let someone else enjoy the pleasure of ownership, but rather than receiving less than what they paid for it, they are rewarded with a healthy premium on the amount originally invested. If only the same thing could be said about the cars that we all choose to buy!

To read more on this subject click over to http://www.simplyreg.com/personalised-number-plates/information

DVLA Auction July 2007

2007-07-08T21:14:00.000Z

The DVLA auction was held at The Haycock Hotel, Wansford, Cambridgeshire last week. Prices were very high and there were very few bargains to be had. Dealers were paying strong money on behalf of their clients and also to buy in for their own stock.

Whilst this may seem like bad news for anyone who was looking to buy last week, it is very good news for anyone who already owns a personalised number plate. The strong prices help to underpin the value of existing plates, just going to show once again what sound investments number plates can be.

Here is a small selection of registrations and the hammer prices they acheived at last week's auction:

88 C - £15,400
1 CCF - £10,200
DEB 111E - £11,600
1 FDP - £11,200
80 G - £8,400
1 KET - £10,200
G30 RGE - £21,600
110 LLY - £16,200
95 MB - £9,700
1 NFG - £12,000
1 PFA - £13,400
RAB 61T - £4,900
SAM 1W - £5,000
1 SFA - £16,500
SKY 80X - £5,000
2 SLY - £11,000
1 TCJ - £14,800
28 X - £8,100
9 YD - £10,300

If you were unlucky this time, the next DVLA Auction will be held 5th, 6th and 7th of September at The Dormy House Hotel, Broadway, Worcestershire. The list of registrations going under the hammer is at http://www.dvlaregistrations.co.uk/home/en/Auction/p/next

Do You Own a Personalised Number Plate?

2007-03-10T23:48:00.000Z

Welcome to the Simply Registrations Blog.

This blog is for any UK motorist who owns, or is considering owning a personalised number plate. The aim is to provide content that will be useful and informative. I am also available to answer any questions that you may have concerning private number plates.

My name is James and I deal in number plates. I supply to motorists who want to get rid of their standard issue registration and change it for something more appropriate. It could be a name, initials, a nick name, a funny word or even a football team. Whatever a client is looking for, my aim is to source it and supply it as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

If you have any questions or comments, please post them here.

I look forward hearing from you.

James.