At the RM Sotheby’s auction on Saturday 31st October, two extremely culturally significant dateless plates fetched a staggering combined sum of £257,920. Both are perfect translations: one to a British institution and the other for a hip-hop legend who’s only recently posthumously achieved justice, thirty years after his murder.
As always, prices quoted in this report include fees and taxes.
| Registration | Total sale price (inc. premium) | Hammer price | Key association | Category format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAF 1 | £223,200 | £180,000 | Royal Air Force / military heritage | Three-letter number 1 |
| 2 PAC | £34,720 | £28,000 | Tupac Shakur / music culture | Single digit, three-letter initials |
It was at The Peninsula London, where the prestigious auction house has held its annual bidding for the last three years, that the gavel struck on the anonymous bid of £223,200 for RAF 1. Quite clearly an immediately recognisable acronym for the United Kingdom’s military air force, the Royal Air Force.
Why RAF 1 achieved £223,200 at RM Sotheby’s London auction
With Remembrance Sunday falling on the 8th of November and Armistice Day following on the 11th, RAF 1 went under the hammer just as the nation prepares to honour those who served and those who never returned.
While the bidder’s identity remains anonymous, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that it was a member of the royal family. His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Prince William, served as an RAF search-and-rescue chopper pilot from 2010 to 2013, after earning his RAF wings in 2008, and is certainly not short of spare change. King Charles III also trained as an RAF pilot in 1971 and frequently holds honorary appointments within the Royal Air Force. It’s publicly known that the King has a liking for three-letter number 1 plates. In fact, former royal butler Grant Harrold recently shared the alleged inside joke behind MYT 1, a plate once belonging to our late Queen, reportedly standing for “mighty one”.
Another possible guess could be the British-Belizean businessman and pollster, Lord Michael Ashcroft. Ashcroft’s admiration for the RAF has manifested itself in some quite notable acts of philanthropy. In May 2011, he announced a £1,000,000 endorsement to the RAF Bomber Command Memorial appeal. The following year, in September 2012, Ashcroft pledged all author royalties from Heroes of the Skies to the RAF Benevolent Fund. Not quite finished just yet, he donated another £75,000 to help preserve the Bomber Command Memorial. This donation ensured that the last surviving Dambuster pilot from No. 617 Squadron, the RAF’s precision-bombing unit responsible for the attack on Germany’s Ruhr Valley hydroelectric and industrial dams, could donate his medals to a museum rather than auctioning them off to fund the memorial’s conservation.
Minus the speculation of who the lucky bidder was, RAF 1’s £223,200 sum lands the registration firmly in the 3-letter number 1 most expensive sales chart.
2 PAC sells for £34,720: the story and celebrity appeal
Moving from British royalty to rapper royalty, 2 PAC, or Tupac, reached £34,720 at Saturday’s auction. For the uncultured - sorry, uneducated - Tupac Shakur made music that held, and holds, America’s fractures up to the light. His 90s songs, including Hit ’Em Up and All Eyez On Me, remain blasting through the AirPods of today. Tupac’s stage name, 2Pac, exquisitely depicts and explains the five-figure appeal of 2 PAC.
Few artists have been so tragically consumed by their own mythology as the late American rapper, who was caught in gunfire on Las Vegas Boulevard on 7th September 1996. He passed away six days later, aged just 25. What followed was thirty years of speculation and conspiracy. It was only last month, in October 2026, that Duane “Keffy D” Davis was sentenced to forty years to life for his organisation of his assassination.
In an auction better known for its remarkable cars, these two registrations proved that a few characters can carry just as much cultural and monetary value. From the Royal Air Force to one of hip-hop’s most enduring figures, RAF 1 and 2 PAC could hardly have different meanings, yet they both demonstrate the extraordinary value of an instantly recognisable, culturally significant combination.
