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The DVLA held their latest auction of personalized number plates on Wednesday 24th October through until Friday the s6th of October at the Down Hall Hotel , Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire and continued to enjoy success in attracting bids from the public and dealers in the room , on-line , by telephone and by post.The DVLA are only allowed to auction registration numbers which have not been previously issued to a vehicle, they cannot auction numbers belonging to members of the public or registrations which no longer have the original vehicle in existence.

Biggest success was the sale of WE57 HAM ( West Ham ) which brought *45,000 at the drop of the hammer being fueled by a bidding war amongst enthusiastic West Ham supporters , the winner was anonymous, having done his bidding over the internet.This beats the previous record for a football related plate as AR53 NAL fetched *36,000 in 2004. There was also a unique piece of memorabilia in the form of a framed *plate of greats* signed by 44 Hammers footballers including Sir Geoff Hurst MBA and Martin Peters MBE .This was auctioned for *1100 with the proceeds going to the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK. Next highest sale was for the registration number 1 DAM at *25000 which did not seem excessive for such popular initials with the exclusivity of number one , then 78 G at *16000. The number 1 registrations continued in popularity with 1 WEE bringing *15,000,1 TAA brought the same amount and 1 RRJ brought *14,000.

Some notable bargains were B111 DUF ( Bill Duff ) at *350 ,BER 3T at *450, LON 3R at *600 and DOU 99Y at *800 .Surprisingly high bids were made for CRA 19S ( *8,600 ) , SCR 44P (*8,600 ) and ALL 3X ( *9,000 ) .Some surprisingly unsold numbers were PAM 911S with a reserve of *500 ( maybe a Porsche 911S is not really a girl's car? ) and RUM 5S with a reserve of only *400. Some of the more attractive novelty registration numbers were COO 1L at *7,500 , GOA 1S at 7,100 , CLU 8S at *8,700 and MU55 ELS at *5000.

All prices are bids achieved on top of these figures the buyer would have paid an auctioneers commission , v.a.t. at 17.5% and an *80 D.O.T. transfer fee , this adds approximately 25% on top of the bid amount.

Total income for the auction was in excess of *4 million plus vat of course and also an *80 transfer fee for each number is due ,bringing the total catch for the treasury to nearer *6 million.

There is another auction planned for December 4th , 5th and 6th at Tankersley manor, Barnsley , South Yorkshire . This is probably going to be the last one for 2007 although there have been occasional special sales around Christmas in the past , but these have been for a small number of very exclusive numbers expected to bring huge bids.

Free catalogues can be downloaded in PDF format from the DVLA sale of marks website , you can then pick which way you wish to bid and register for bidding at this sale. Alternatively you can view a full list of personalised number plates on offer in Excel or Adobe Flash format.