First class post

We don’t often receive handwritten letters these days, but Brian Holmes Featherstone kindly put pen to paper in order to share his personal number plates journey.

MGB 404 number plate

Brian, who lives in Sunderland, acquired his first private registration number in 1967. He was driving his MGB when he spotted MGB 404 on the Ford Popular in front of him.

Brian followed the car home and spoke to the 17-year-old driver. “I explained that I thought his number plate would look better on my MGB. I offered him £5 plus the DVLA fee of £5 and the cost of a new number plate for his car. He asked his father, who said 'OK'."

BHF 7 number plate

Five years later, in 1972, Brian bought BHF 7 for £75.

I sold it in 1994, thinking that the DVLA selling private number plates would ruin the market. How wrong I was! BHF 7 came up for sale again in 2006, so I bought it back for twice the price I’d sold it for in 1994. That taught me to think twice before selling something I like.

E5 AFC and a growing collection

Brian bought E5 AFC in 2009 as a token of his support for Sunderland AFC, of which his brother had previously been chairman. Brian’s next acquisitions, 2 OV, 86 V and 38 F, were bought because a Regtransfers sales advisor had told him that short numbers may be more likely to increase in value.

“He was correct,” says Brian. “They all went up in value by 50% within three years.”

Brian has owned several more registration numbers. He bought 1 XMY simply because he had decided he’d like to own a number-one plate. He has also owned 22 BF, 38 F and BF 11 and, most recently, H 22 (which he still owns).

‘H’ registrations were issued by Middlesex County Council between December 1903 and July 1912, and the two-digit H 22 implies the earlier date.

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