A rare number plate has sold for £300k at auction - here’s the registration

A car number plate with just two characters has entered into the top 10 most expensive licence plates in the UK.

The registration ‘J 4’ sold for £380,000. The price is a record for a licence plate from Jersey.

Auctioneer Simon Drieu said, “The lower the number, the more prestigious the plate. This is a frightening sum.”

The most expensive number plate in the UK is ‘25 O’, which sold for £518,480 in 2014.

How to check how much your number plates could be worth

The Guide to the Value of Car Registrations in the UK uses a series of tables and star ratings to calculate the value of nearly every combination of numbers and letters.

While the rarest of the rare could be worth up to £600,000, even more basic registrations could still have a high value.

Specific plates may vary, but the following combinations generally fall into these price categories:

• New style registrations £150 - £4,999 eg NA51 USA (£350)
• Triple letter combinations with suffix year letters £199 - £6,99 eg SUE 694R (£1,599)
• Triple letter combinations with prefix year letters £199 - £6,599 eg G4 ABC (£1,099)
• Triple letter combinations without year letters £499 - £60,000 eg 4 JGM (£6,999)
• Triple letter prefix combinations without year letters £699 - £75,000 eg BPS 2 (£8,599)
• Double letter suffix combinations £699 - £150,000 eg 6 WO (£30,999)
• Double letter prefix combinations £799 - £200,000 eg VN 442 (£2,199)
• Single letter suffix combinations £1,599 - £500,00 eg 3763 C (£3,999)
• Single letter prefix combinations £1,799 - £600,000 eg A 247 (£15,599)

How to buy a personalised number plate

You can buy a personalised registration for your number plates from the DVLA online or at auction.

You can see when the next auctions will take place on the DVLA auctions website. There are two types of auctions to choose from - traditional auctions and timed auctions.

The DVLA states that the “more widely sought after registrations” are sold at traditional auctions, which are held at specially selected venues throughout the UK.

Time auctions are held three or four times a year, and “contain many registrations specifically requested by the public”.

If you cannot bid in person, you can opt for telephone bidding, internet bidding, or you can submit an absentee bid. Alternatively, you can browse available registrations and buy them online without going through the auctioning process.

You can also buy a personalised registration number from a dealer, or privately. If you decide to take this route, make sure you receive the V750 certificate of entitlement or V778 certificate or retention.

How to sell your registration

If you’ve got a car registration that you’d like to sell, the DVLA says, “We suggest you approach a private dealer or advertise the registration for sale yourself.

“DVLA’s sales scheme is confined to selling its own previously unissued registrations.”

There are a number of private dealers you can find online to sell your registration, many of which have free number plate valuation services.