Goldfinger James Bond AU 1 Number Plate Back Up For Sale

he iconic "AU 1" number plate, featured on the Rolls-Royce in the James Bond film Goldfinger, is now up for sale with an estimated value of over £300,000. This unique investment opportunity is expected to attract avid collectors and James Bond enthusiasts.

The 1939 Rolls-Royce Phantom III, driven by the villain Auric Goldfinger in the 1964 film, sported the distinctive "AU 1" number plate, a clever reference to the chemical symbol for gold. We anticipate strong interest due to the plate's association with the iconic film and its status as a short, aesthetically pleasing number plate.

The plate has significance and investment potential: "As iconic number plates go, this one has to be right up there with one of the best, not least of all because of the plate's association with the famed car used by Goldfinger and Oddjob to smuggle gold out of the country. It's also nothing new that short number plates are fast becoming increasingly popular, not only because of their aesthetically pleasing stature on any vehicle but because of their investment potential, too."

Previously sold in 2013, the "AU 1" number plate is currently registered to a 1937 Rolls-Royce. There is a growing demand for shorter number plates. The future of this iconic plate remains to be seen, but it is likely to grace another Rolls-Royce, continuing its legacy in the world of automobiles and cinema.

How close a series of letters or numbers are to a real name of word: if the match quality is high (and the numbers and letters are very convincing in making a popular word), the value of the registration plate will be higher. This means that a match like 5IMON, for the name Simon, will be worth a lot more than a more obscure set of letters and numbers that are not as convincing a match, such as S17 MMM for the name Sam.

The style of the plate: this means establishing if it is a new-style plate, an older-style format or if it is dateless or Irish, for instance. Other options are that it is a prefix-style plate or a suffix-style plate. New-style number plates, which have been produced since 2001, tend to be the least valuable because they are a bit less appealing to some collectors, plus the rule about not having plates that are newer than your car can also come into play, putting people off from buying a newer-style plate for their older car. Prefix-style number plates, which were in production between 1983 and 2001 can be more popular as more vehicles are entitled to have those licence numbers, and they may have fewer characters in total. Suffix-style plates, issued from 1963 to 1983 are relatively rare, which means they can attract higher prices than prefix-style plates and newer designs. Dateless number plates, also known as cherished number plates, were produced between 1903 and 1963 and are nearly always the most valuable number plate configurations; they have fewer digits and their dateless nature means that people can hide the age of their car. Irish number plates are similar to dateless number plates, especially because they don’t have a year identifier. They also tend to be cheaper than other types of vehicle registration plates.

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