'A number plate I bought for £120 kickstarted career that made me a millionaire'
A millionaire has claimed his fortune has emerged entirely from selling a private number plate for £3,000 - and using the money to buy a house.
Birmingham resident Rod Sheilds realised the number plate could be valuable after buying it for only £120 in the 1980s - as it has only one number and three letters. Rod listed it in the classifieds, and within a day had sold it for £3,000 in 1981 - equivalent to £15,000 today.
The number plate, 4VBF, is estimated to be worth above £20,000 according to Rod, now 60, who says ultimately “it's only worth what someone is willing to pay”. After Rod made the sale in 1981, he put a 25 percent deposit down for a three-bed in Wolverhampton - and began his career as a property developer.
Rod doubled the value of the property, renovating the house and renting it to four students. After buying a second property to develop and doing the same, he has now built himself a “multi-million portfolio”, which he says was “all bought on that one plate”. Rod also sells custom number plates to business clients as a side business, with his best, BE57APP, selling for £3,000.
Rod says the purchase of the first number plate “gave me the push to do it”, and that he “always knew there were opportunities out there. “I've always read the Sunday Times as it had cars and houses in - my two loves. And it was there I discovered number plates”, he added.
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The Birmingham resident now has a multi-million pound property portfolio (SWNS)“I didn't know how much I could sell it for, I just thought 'let me just try it.' I just knew it would be worth something because it had one number and three letters - I just guessed the price and put it up for £4k and someone offered just over £3000.”
Rod says it cost two weeks wages to put the number plate into the Sunday Times to advertise - “so it was a risk”. After buying it from a colleague at work he put it straight up to advertise, and got a call that same night.
“They put it in a trailer and took it away,” he recalled. “I sold the plate at about 17 or 18 years old and bought the house at 18 but didn't complete it until 19. I've always been into property, and I wanted to buy at 16 but I was told not to because I was too young. Ironically, the property I wanted to buy was £9k and ended up being £13k when I was 18.”
Rod has always had a keen interest in number plates, which hasn’t dwindled over time. “The plates were an opportunity from the paper,” he said. “I'm an opportunist and I saw something that was undervalued. I sell what I've got with plates - everyone goes for their names, but I concentrate on business related.
“Your initials on a plate won't generate as many leads as a unique business related plates, you'll get more custom. For instance, we sold BU57 TAP - bust tap - to a plumbing business which generated leads and brand awareness.”
Rod also combines number plates with domain names when he sells them - such as the number plate JU57BMV and the domain name BMV (Below Market Value). “I see that as you turning your car into a mobile billboard. It's the ultimate marketing tool. I just buy the plates and hold them in stock. I've had plates that have been on for £5k and someone's offered £2k and I've sold them.”
Rod recalls his decision to find a George Michael number plate: “One day I was listening to Last Christmas by George Michael, and I Googled how much he earns from that song - which was around £250k a year in royalties. I wondered if there were any George related plates, and it turned out there were.
“I bought UG03RGE - first released in 2003 - the year he died for around £400 and sold it for just under £3k.”
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