How Much Will You Pay For Your Vanity?
port1080.
Posted to Etcetera on Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 02:59:10 AM EST (promoted by 1fastdog). RSS.
Recently in the United Arab Emirates, Saeed Khouri, a member of a wealthy local family, paid $14 million at a charity auction to purchase the vanity license plate number "1" for his personal use.
Such auctions have been used in the UAE for a number of years to raise money for charity - previous auctions have brought in more than $50 million in proceeds.
Arab nations aren't the only places where people are willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money for a certain license plate number, however. In Hong Kong, license plate numbers are also auctioned off, and movie stars and business tycoons have shown a willingness to pay top dollar. Action movie star Jackie Chan paid $1.5 million for the luck number 123 in a 2006 auction.
Such excess even has its devotees in the United States. While most states only allow lettered vanity plates for a fixed fee, and don't auction off numbered plates, Delaware allows residents to "own" plate numbers and to transfer them from car to car or even sell them (but only "old style" black and white plates numbered up to 86999). In an auction on Feb 17th, Delaware plate number 6 sold for $675,000.
< Fidel Castro throws down the towel...
Air Force faces a "major procurement crisis" >
