Sales of personalised number plates have raised nearly £2 billion for the Treasury since the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency started selling them 30 years ago, with 2018 seeing drivers spend £116 million on so-called ‘vanity’ plates. Below you can find the top 10 most expensive plates ever sold in the UK.

The DVLA has sold 5.9 million personalised plates since 1989, raising £1.95billion for the Treasury in the process. The first-ever lot of DVLA-sold plates was auctioned by Christies, with the sale seeing the registration A1 sell for £160,000, a relative bargain considering the plate is worth several times that today.

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But while just 658 personalised registrations sold in the 1989/90 financial year, over 26,000 were sold the following year, and 404,000 went under the hammer in the 2018/19 financial year. The average price paid for a vanity plate at one of the DVLA’s regular timed auctions is £877, while its live auctions have an average purchase price of £3,225.

The DVLA’s 30th anniversary live auction will see 1,250 plates offered for sale over 16, 17 and 18 July at the Vale Resort in Hensol, Vale of Glamorgan. Among the registrations being auctioned are HUG 60S (£300 reserve) IG 1 (£2,400), 311 A (reserve £2,500), B41 KER (£250) and JA66 UAR (£400).