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Re: Eat your heart out!

To: Frank Clarici <spritenut@Exit109.com>
Subject: Re: Eat your heart out!
From: b-evans@ix.netcom.com
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 08:05:48 -0800
Cc: spridgets@Autox.Team.Net, healeys@Autox.Team.Net
References: <Pine.A41.3.96.971124085737.234972B-100000@tigger.cc.uic.edu> <347A34B8.10D574B4@Exit109.com> <347AF9DA.3E6@ix.netcom.com> <347B7414.C2FD905F@Exit109.com>
Reply-to: b-evans@ix.netcom.com
Sender: owner-spridgets@Autox.Team.Net
> Anybody want to buy mine? I have 2, a bargain @ 15,000 each!
> 
> I'm eating! I'm eating!   Where are these suckers when I wanna sell a car?

Ah, but Frank, does yours have its original registration/license plate
number?  In looking at car prices, we Yanks all too often forget the
importance the English place on license plate numbers, or as they term
it, the "registration".  

Unlike in the U.S., the English can buy and sell their number on the
private market. In England, the government issues the NUMBER, and it is
up to the owner to have the plate made.  There is a thriving business,
and some companies will advertise a list of hundreds of license numbers
they are selling.  Why would a person buy or sell a license number? 
Just look around at the "vanity plates" on American roads.  The
difference is that here  a person may pay the state an additional $50 or
so. But in England these plates may costs THOUSANDS of dollars because
they are bought and sold on the open market.  A friend of mine recently
paid $2,415 for a license that bore his three initials and the number 18
(his wife's lucky number).  More sought after plates may bring over
$100,000.

What does this have to do with the price of a 1958 Sprite?  ANY car
manufactured before 1963 (when a new style of license came into effect)
that has its original registration (license plate number) is
automatically worth 25% more than a car that has been re-registered.

(Another important factor in determining "value" is whether the car is
1) right hand drive, and 2) if it was originally right hand drive.)

Bob Evans
Anaheim, California
Frogeyes  AN 5L/762  AN 5L/6893


> > At Sotheby's September auction at the RAF Mueseum in Hendon, a 1958 Mark
> > I Sprite sold for 12,190 pounds (including a 15% buyer's premium).  At
> > the current exchange rate, that is $19,625, and does not include a 17.5
> > VAT, which allowed the new owner to walk away after plunking down
> > $20,060!  The Frogeye was listed by Sotheby's as "excellent/ restored",
> > not quite the quality of "concours" or "superb".
> >
> > Bob Evans
> >
> 
> Anybody want to buy mine? I have 2, a bargain @ 15,000 each!
> 
> I'm eating! I'm eating!   Where are these suckers when I wanna sell a car?
> 
> --
> Frank Clarici
> Too many Sprites
> http://www.exit109.com/~spritenut

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