Why Aye

Those "cherished" number plates - we keep spotting them. Not as many, probably, as you'd see around Kensington High Street or other such places where the streets are paved with two-pound coins, but enough for the occasional blog post ;o)

Last week, it was the turn of W1 EYE, which we could only interpret as the famous Geordie greeting "why aye!" We tried various online searches to work out how much a plate like that would be worth, but all of them asked, at least, for a declaration that we owned the plate or had the permission of the owner, and in some cases we would have had to sign up and give them an arm, a leg, and our inside leg measurements before they'd let such sensitive information loose. Tch!

Near as we could tell though, with similar but not *quite* so legible plates going for around the £400 mark, is that it would be worth about five hundred. It wasn't on a particularly stand-out motor. Occasionally we see what must be a very valuable plate on a totally mundane car, which looks quite incongruous.

All of this made me wonder: if you had a budget of £50,000, would you spend it all on a snazzy motor with a regular registration, or would you spend £20,000 on a reasonable car and £30,000 on a really unusual plate? Where would your dividing line be?

Years ago, I registered my interest in a cherished plate that was, at the time, unavailable. As far as I can tell it still is, since they've never contacted me to see if I'm still interested. I quite fancied driving around behind D16 GER, but I wouldn't part with more than a couple of hundred quid for it, and I suspect I'd be in a very long queue if it ever came up.