GOLD PLATED
WE RAN a story on streetmachine.com.au about how NSW number plate 29 fetched $745,000 at a recent Shannons Auction. As well as giving us an excuse to run a bunch of pics of some of the more outrageous Aussie burnout-car plates, the story has us asking: Would you pay nearly 750 grand for a piece of pressed tin?
Michael Gannon – Well, that’s one way to launder some drug money. Anthony Mouhtaris – $750K for a piece of sheet metal that costed two dollars to make? This planet is doomed. Stephen Egan – ‘Costed’? Yes, this planet is doomed.
Andrew Teesdale – I don’t get it. What’s special about the number 29?
Marty Sutton – These plates aren’t customs but are original plates. Low numbers always pull a lot of coin. Whoever bought them would obviously be a collector.
Andrew Teesdale – So it would have originally been off the 29th car ever registered in NSW?
Marty Sutton – I guess so. There was an interesting story about the ‘1’ number plate in Victoria – it wasn’t put on the first car in the state due to a dispute, and was not offered to the public until the 80s.
Andrew Teesdale – Problem with owning 29 is there’d be 28 people with better plates than you!
Nathan Terry – Yes, this number plate is the 29th to be issued in NSW and originates from 1911. The thing that makes it special is that it has been on a registered car since then. Once the rego is cancelled and the plate surrendered it can never be re-issued, making any of those numeralonly, black-with-white-writing number plates highly collectable.
Peter Sydney – Number plates aren’t investments; they don’t actually create a source of income or capital growth. They don’t have any intrinsic value except for what someone is willing to pay for them. The only way you can make money off a number plate is hope someone else is going to offer you more than what you paid for it.
Dave Bennett – If it sells for more than you bought it for, it’s an investment. Maybe it’s not something you would invest in. But for some people it’s an option.
Terry Hickey – Next you will be telling me XY GT Falcons and HT 350 Bathurst Monaros sell for over $300,000!
Sam Taylor – Look at some of these plates! ‘MOIST’! Cohen Rosco Walters – Guess you boys love our NT style – we’ve got four photos of our burnout plates in this story! Peter Kelly – Yeah, number plates like that are for wankers. Owen Myhill – You want the plates JIZZ2NV, don’t you?