Personalised Number Plates and Cherished Numbers

What is the difference between a personalised number plate and a cherished number ? To understand this we need to go back many years when suffix numbers were not popular and the only type of registration number which was traded was ageless. Transfers were much more difficult and were always vehicle to vehicle as there was no retention scheme , in fact to transfer a number you had to be registered keeper of both vehicles. With the introduction of the certificate of entitlement and the availability of previously unissued prefix type numbers a personalised number number plate became available to many more people due to price and ease of transfer. These generic terms still loosely apply but as time passes , suffix type numbers are increasingly being called cherished numbers. With a new registration number system introduced in 2001 even prefix numbers are referred to as cherished numbers even though they were the ones that started the low cost personalised number plate revolution.

Desirable registration numbers come from various sources , most ageless numbers are on or have been removed from old vehicles although some are previously unissued numbers which have been sold at auction. Irish numbers usually have come from old vehicles , not so old vehicles and sometimes auction or tender sales. Suffix registration numbers are on or have been removed from old vehicles although some will be previously unissued numbers which have been sold at auction. Most prefix numbers are not worth selling as they have two many digits in them or the last three letters are not popular initials, the exceptions to these are "name numbers" eg E834 LYN or shorter numbers with good initials, sometimes a prefix number can spell eg G380 RGY which resembles GEORGY. For each prefix letter the numbers 1 to 20 were kept back and after H prefix additional numbers ( 22,30,33,40 up to 999) were not issued and later made available for sale. Most issued newstyle registrations are worthless as the good ones are "cherry picked" and kept back for sale or auction so unissued numbers are just about all that are available to buy.

Irish number plates are a cheap way of hiding the age of a car or motorbike if you are happy to have a 7 digit number containing a letter Z or letter I. People with name like BIL and nicknames like CAZ are laughing as the can have an ageless name plate for very little money. Compare that with an ageless LYN or JOE number! Some Irish numbers are absolutely cracking e.g BIG 1 was recently sold at auction. It will be interesting to see what happens if the rumoured amalgamation of the DVLNI and the DVLA happens. Will they be forced to adopt our system or will they continue with their own number system? If they are forced to change will the value of issued numbers soar?