DVLA's January 2025 auction was an online event that ran from Wednesday 8th January to Tuesday 14th January 2025.
As always, prices quoted in this report include fees and taxes.
January's top 5
Top of the shop this month was 1544 C ('Isaac') which sold for £43,312. In second place was 86 OO (£33,156), which may represent a significant number to someone, or it may have been chosen just for its neat visual appeal.
Third place was taken by 8000 O which, again, may be someone's special number but may equally have sold for £32,257 on the strength of its visual impact. Again and again we see good money paid for repeating 0/O or X combinations.
The fourth place lot was 7 HSK at £30,267. It seems unlikely to have been chosen for its reference to the international Chinese language proficiency test, so we're guessing it was purchased as an initials plate. The registration in the number 5 slot is rather easier to decipher: 18 UY (£25,799) clearly spells 'I buy'.
Words
A mixed bag of words was hidden away amongst the lots on offer. Some eyebrows may be raised at the inclusion of OHS 111T (just stare at it for a few moments and you'll get the message), as the censors often pounce on plates like this. Somehow it managed to escape into the wild and a sharp-eyed bidder duly parted with £11,777.
The purchaser of 533 YOU was happy to say 'See you' to £11,713 for their chosen combination, while MAG 71C made £9,081 of its buyer's money disappear.
Amongst the other words that sold were THE 635T ('The best') at £7,591, BAN 96R ('Banger') at £7,168, P424 SOL ('Parasol') at £4,715, SLE 19H ('Sleigh') at £4,600 and CRA 42Y ('Crazy') at £4,587.
Names
We saw above that the most expensive name registration took first place in this month's big sellers chart, but even the less expensive combinations in the names selection were interesting, with multiple examples of a couple of names.
It sometimes seems that the supply of 'Singh' plates is inexhaustible, and January's auction just strengthened that impression. This month alone we saw DC51 NGH (£7,938), CC51 NGH (£7,797), TE51 NGH (£7,091), KN51 NGH (£5,871) and SW51 NGH (£5,293) along with a few less precise variations.
A couple of 'Reuben' registrations were sold: REU 66N made £6,384 and RUE 63N achieved £4,458.
Other names included AM74 NDA ('Amanda') at £16,772, RAS 117D ('Rashid") at £15,565, THO 1R ('Thor') at £9,389, NA74 HAN ('Nathan') at £9,081 and AR19 NNA at £9,068.
Miscellaneous
Once again we saw many combinations featuring symmetry or repeated letters and numbers. Plates with repetitions of X and/or O/0 are always eye-catching, and usually seem to make good money for registrations with no immediately obvious meaning.
In addition to 8000 O that we saw above, examples this month included OO60 OOO at £11,572, 176 OOO at £10,236, OOO 10W at £4,266 and E900 OOO at £3,329.
Top 50 sales
| Plate | Price * |
|---|---|
| 1544 C | £43,312 |
| 86 OO | £33,156 |
| 8000 O | £32,257 |
| 7 HSK | £30,267 |
| 18 UY | £25,799 |
| FSZ 1 | £21,317 |
| 610 S | £21,150 |
| 8 PKB | £21,022 |
| 189 J | £20,996 |
| 3 RGN | £20,149 |
| 786 YH | £19,931 |
| 3 ONE | £19,494 |
| 81 RKS | £19,481 |
| V81 UKE | £18,082 |
| 118 RHM | £18,069 |
| 1 WCK | £17,876 |
| RXS 1 | £17,645 |
| AM74 NDA | £16,772 |
| 1 SXL | £16,528 |
| 1 VSN | £16,079 |
| 12 BEE | £15,629 |
| RAS 117D | £15,565 |
| 1 XAA | £15,527 |
| USM 74N | £15,527 |
| 130 H | £15,244 |
| 111 RJM | £15,051 |
| 24 KSS | £15,051 |
| NAA 1A | £14,910 |
| SXF 1A | £14,217 |
| BHV 1K | £14,217 |
| 111 WDM | £14,153 |
| 911 MAK | £13,999 |
| 9 OJB | £13,857 |
| 11 KJW | £13,639 |
| 111 RSB | £13,575 |
| 9 SHD | £13,575 |
| 45 YY | £13,562 |
| 6 RKB | £13,511 |
| 11 TJD | £12,946 |
| SHU 3B | £12,933 |
| 4 KLU | £12,933 |
| 8 LDN | £12,933 |
| 16 SLR | £12,933 |
| 151 T | £12,933 |
| 880 G | £12,933 |
| 121 AS | £12,933 |
| 92 FA | £12,920 |
| 294 N | £12,817 |
| 29 OA | £12,779 |
| 1 TUX | £12,355 |
* Prices include fees and taxes.
The stats
January's DVLA online auction comprised 2,000 lots, 1,966 of which were sold and 34 unsold. Purchasers spent a total of £6,254,714, delivering £5,922,299 to the Treasury.
The next DVLA timed online auction will take place from Wednesday 12th to Tuesday 18th February 2025.
The Regtransfers auction
Buy and sell with our number plate auction. You can see what is coming soon or jump in to the listings.
DVLA November 2024 Auction
Learn more about personal number plates that sold for great prices in the DVLA's previous auction.
