World’s Oldest Regplate Up For Sale!

The world’s oldest number plate — number ‘6′ — is on sale for Dh29 million ($7.9 million), and its owner is looking for a buyer in the UAE.

John Roberts, a 69-year-old Canadian resident, bought the plate in 2006 and said he recently had it categorised by the Guiness Book of World Records as the Oldest Licence Plate in the World.

“I have been researching a licence plate that I purchased in 2006 that was issued in 1884 to a horse-drawn carriage. This plate was issued in Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia, Canada. The feeling of jubilation was astonishing when Guinness World Records mailed me the official certificate. The plate, showing No 6 is stored in a bank vault in Victoria, on the west coast of Canada,” Roberts told Gulf News via email from Canada.

Roberts said he is hoping the plate will fetch the price tag, because it is in “a world class of its own with nothing to compare it with”.

The British expatriate, who moved to Western Canada in 1975, has been a collector of expensive license plates for 30 years: he also said that there are only 4,000 licence plate collectors worldwide.

Collector’s item

“I have never owned a classic vehicle, preferring to collect the plates that adorn them,” he continued.

Roberts drives tour buses for a living, which takes him through the Canadian Rockies during summer months.

Collectable licence plates can be big business. In February 2008, at an auction in Abu Dhabi, businessman Saeed Al Khoury, 25, broke the world record for purchasing the most expensive plate in the world. He paid a whopping Dh52.2 million for licence plate No 1, after fierce bidding.

Similarly, No 5 cost its buyer Talal Al Khoury Dh25.2 million in 2007.