Personal number plates - How to value & good time to buy?

[Ari]

Just wondered, with all the doom and gloom, whether it was hitting personal plate prices and therefore whether now is a good time to think of getting one?

And how do you value them? Appreciate that less numbers is better, and presumably two letters are better than three in terms of resale so guessing if your initials are ABC then AC is better than ABC, and AC 12 is better than AC 123?

Any thoughts, tips, suggestions or ideas around valuing and purchasing personal plates?

[FunBusMk2]

A bump for you. MrReg is on here and he's a plate dealer. He'll see you right.

[bertelli_1]

Also worth having a look here - http://www.conrod.co.uk/numfaq.html

[Small Car]

I have been having a good look at DVLA auction results for the last ten years or so, and the Market does seem to have weakened a margin, but not to the extent that there appear to be lots of bargains. Do some searches here...

http://snipurl.com/21jzy9k

[Ari]

That's brilliant, thank you chaps.

I'm surprised, I'd have thought personal plates would have taken a hammering, discretionary purchases don't come much more discretionary than this!

Then again, they're not an expensive thing to hang on too either if owners don't need to sell I suppose.

[FunBusMk2]

I was under the impression the market has got a lot stronger in recent years, not weaker?

[Ari]

They certainly seem more commonplace. But I guess once they're out there, they're out there. There's only ever going to be more.

I also wonder whether the prolification of cheap C3 ABC type plates weakens the "prestige", and therefore value, of "proper" plates. Or maybe it just proves their popularity.