Cherished, Personalised, DVLA prefix number plates. Call them what you like, but there are 5 types of Personalised number plates for sale which includes Irish registrations. They are, in chronological order, Cherished number plates which were original issued from 1901 until 1963. Suffix number plates which have a year letter at the end of the plate that were issued from 1963 until they ran out of letters in 1983. Then DVLA issued prefix numbers from 1983 until August 2001 and more recently the style of plate is the new-style of registration number.
The most popular of these styles is undoubtedly the prefix style plate. The reason is simple. When the DVLA first became active in the sale of private plates, this was the type of plate that was being issued at that time. As a result, they kept all the attractive numbers like 1 to 20 back from release to garages so that they could sell them to the public. After 12 months most of the popular combination of letters had sold so the DVLA decided to keep an even larger selection of numbers for sale. Numbers like 22, 33, 44 and so on. This meant that they now had almost three times the number of registrations for sale.
These days, the new-style plates are being released for sale every six months and whilst there are hundreds more combinations for sale, the prefix style plates still outstrip the new-style sales by three to one proving that they are still the most popular style of number plate on sale today.
The cherished registrations were, and still are, the most revered of private plates. The very early single number and single letter registrations will always look amazing on any car. The likes of A 1, the first registration issued, to V 1 and Y 1 that are amongst the last, can’t help but turn heads whenever they are seen.
Prefix registrations have made a somewhat late appeal to the public who want that something different without spending a great deal. They are more appealing than a DVLA prefix registration but they are not so widely available as it was during the period when they were being issued that the non year letter cherished number plates became desirable. As a result many of the prefix style plates seen on sale today originate from the DVLA auction.
The recent new-style Car Registration Plates that will appear on all new cars for around another 40 years don’t really inspire much interest unless they spell a word or name like BR15 TOL or PR05 PER. Only then will they really be worth more than their original sale price.