A NUMBER plate sold to raise money for Tatton Park has fetched a world record price of £331,500 at auction.

The M1 registration mark was bought by an anonymous north west-based bidder – for his six-year-old son’s birthday.

Officials at auctioneers Bonhams and Tatton Park were stunned by the final selling price for the unique plate, which quickly reached and overtook the previous world record.

And they were even more amazed to learn that the owner is a boy who cannot legally drive for another 11 years.

The youngster is the son of a wealthy Cheshire businessman who refused to reveal himself and made his bids by phone.

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Unique Number Plates

Y B-ZAR?

Because his license plate is APRIST — short for apiarist, a fancy word for beekeeper.

“Lots of people don’t get it, because it’s not a very common word,” said Clark, who keeps honeybees in the backyard of his Old Louisville home. “Every once in a while, somebody sees is and asks me about beekeeping and honey. But the whole point of a vanity plate is to create a word which is just like the real words but is itself a puzzle, so when you’re driving down the road, it’s ‘Oh, yeah, I got it!’”

Even in the early days, people recognised the significance and enjoyment brought by owning a prestigious or personalised number plate and often kept them within the family for many years. Their significance is often highly personalised to their owners. Some like to have a registration that originated in their local area, some are attracted to owning their own initials and others enjoy the fun of a word based registration mark.

If you are buying the plates separately then you’ll need to go to a registered number plate supplier to get new number plates for your vehicle. The registered supplier will need proof of your identity, as well as proof that the registration number belongs to you. The number plate supplier will need to see at least one document from each of the lists below. This will allow the number plate supplier to confirm your name, address and entitlement to the registration number. All documents must be original, not copies.