FS "BMW" cherished plate - but only of interest to UK buyers!

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day66

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Any UK interest in a "BMW" cherished number plate?

Plate is "890 BMW" and came off my Coupe and is now on a retention certificate.

I'm going to list on Ebay at £3,890 - the prices for xxxBMW or BMWxxx plates seem all over the place but it seems like as good place to start as any, but if of interest (or you know of someone that fancies it), I'm happy to negotiate.
 
Educate me on this...first off, what is the "890" in reference to?

Then, after I fell backwards in my chair and spilled coffee all over the place 3,890 Pounds? $5,181.17 at current exchange rate. Huh? That's more than my first 2002 cost me. What am I missing here?
 
Personalised or "vanity" plates can be extremely expensive in the UK. I don't know how the system works in the US but here when you buy a new car it receives a registration number that remains with it until it is scrapped or written off. However, if you wish, you can buy an older pre existing number (it has to be older than the year of manufacture of the car to avoid people selling a car claiming to be newer than it actually is). The pre existing numbers must be held on retention by someone to ensure they are still registered with the government agency. When numbers first started being used they were very short and plates like A1 or GS2 can fetch tens of thousands. The government even sell numbers of lower value but that may be attractive to someone with the same initials etc. You can then transfer that number onto your car but you still hold the original number on retention. When you sell the car you can transfer the original number back onto it and keep the vanity number until you want to put it on another vehicle. It's a big business, seemingly lots of people think it's worth the spend, personally I don't.
 
Yep, that's it in a nutshell.

They are not for everyone and it's probably fair to say it's a buyer's market.

UK issued registration plates follow fairly rigid rules that determine what combinations of letters and numbers are issued. When a car is first registered you get what you're given and most will be random and of no significance. However sometimes a combination of letters and numbers may, by chance, read like a word, name, car type/designation or may match initials and occasionally date of birth too, so those may hold significance and value for someone. There's also a tendency to read zeros as letter "O"s, ones as the letter "I", number fives as "S"s etc. so some seemingly random combinations can be valued on that basis - though some you see really stretch the imagination ....

This plate came with my E9 and I've put it back on its original number so it matches all the early history, which I prefer, so just trying to recoup some cash for something that's not dear to me. As to price, well, they're all over the shop but checking with plate dealers in the UK gives comparable figures, but I know those are asking prices, as to selling prices, we'll see .........
 
Well, I never real thought of having a whole country to fight over a plate instead of 50 different states. Of course the less densely populated states make it easier to get the plate you want. You are given three choices in order, one can see if they are available first, submit, pay $25 for initial plate fee then $10 a year after w/ no yearly registration due to the year of the car (talking about the coupe here). It is a "PERMANENT" plate with permanent registration like a trailer. You basically can keep it for life and switch vehicles but if I switch to a newer car, first off it wouldn't make sense because it wouldn't be an E9, but I would then need to pay for the registration again. I never knew cars could have permanent registration until I moved here. Next year I think, or it already passed law, that cars that still require registration (newer cars/trucks), they are getting rid of the pesky "mo/yr" expiration stickers.

I was able to get my first choice E9COUPE with no issue. I don't want to sound like I am rubbing it in, that is not my intention, but just to show the contrast. Another question was when you say UK. Is that all of the UK; Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland as well, or just England and the other countries have different sets of plates?

I get the low number thing. Here in ID, we own the plates for life and can do the same thing if sold, I believe I could sell to someone and they would then be able to transfer them in their name, not sure how that works, I've just kept all of them over the years, hanging in garage etc. But people that have 1, 2 or very low numbers/letters mean they have lived in Idaho for a long time (typically, unless they bought them as well), which are pretty coveted. I've seen a couple with just one or 2 numbers but it's pretty rare. Once I saw two in one day but it was a car weekend. In the UK, it seems more like a "status symbol" at the prices you pay and not just a "vanity plate" as they are called here. Suffice to say, I can see the demand for your plate, but like you are saying, it will take a special person to want to pay that kind of $$$ for a plate, obviously with deep pockets...still WOW! :oops: Might as well start high, can always go lower as we all know. Curious how this turns out for you, keep us posted, good luck.
 
Some of these will make your eyes water :)

Yes indeed, GF1 : £262,500 !!!!
And there are plenty of people stupid enough to pay this sort of money.

Screenshot 2026-03-18 205549.gif
 
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The plate system is overall the same for all of the UK countries however they are regionalised in that you can identify the region of the country (not just the country but regions within it) by decoding the letters. The numbering system has changed vastly over the years as each configuration ran out of numbers but basically all types enable both the year of first registration and the region of registration to be identified.
As an example of an older type, my E3 plate is "RFH 572L" where the last letter designates it as first registered 1972-1973 (August to August) and the second two letters show it was registered in Gloucester.
 
Gotcha...well, look on the bright side, the GF 1 plate is 30% off ($348,076 dollars), so there is that. Hard to tell an "I" from a number "1" (Not sure what "GF 1" is other than being two letters and a number (or letter) indicating very old plate?)...I mean....this is crazy, plain and simple.

Keep driving the heck out of that E3! Cheers -S
 
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