A license plate with only the letter 'R' on it just sold for $3.2 million

A license plate that only has the letter ‘R’ on it just sold for $3.2 million in Hong Kong
Dzmitry Ryshchuk/Getty Images

A Hong Kong license plate that only has the letter ‘R’ was sold for $3.2 million on Sunday.
The bid was at least 5,100 times the reserve price and represented more than 80% of the total raised at the auction.
This isn’t even a record high in the city. A bid for the letter ‘W’ came in at $3.3 million in 2021.

To most, registering for a car license plate is a swift and relatively inexpensive process. 

But over in Hong Kong, a license plate that only has the letter “R” was sold for about 25.5 million Hong Kong dollars, or $3.2 million, at a Lunar New Year auction organized by the Hong Kong Transport Department on Sunday, according to an announcement by the agency. 

The winning bid for the letter “R” was at least 5,100 times the reserve price of around HK$5,000 and represented more than 80% of the total raised at the auction on Sunday, the announcement shows. Around 49 license plate numbers were up for grabs during the auction.

The winning bidder did not respond to media inquiries at the auction hall, the South China Morning Post reported. 

The news outlet further reported that the license plate “R” was expected to net at least HK$10 million, citing registration plate dealers who spoke to the media before the auction. The dealers attributed the large sum to the association of the letter with racing cars and a number considered to be lucky in Chinese fortune-telling, per SCMP.

And Sunday’s winning bid is not even a record high in the city.

On Saturday, transport secretary Lam Sai-hung shared the rankings of the most expensive license plates auctioned in Hong Kong, which showed that the registration of a license plate with the letter “W” was sold for $3.3 million in 2021. He added that the sale of personalized car license plates had netted the government almost $77 million since 2006.

The quest for a novelty car plate is not just limited to Hong Kong. A rare California license plate with the letters “MM” was sold at $24.3 million in 2021, taking the top spot for the most expensive license plate sold in the world, according to Luxe Digital. A man in Dubai paid $9 million for a vanity plate, and another in the United Arab Emirates paid $14.5 million.