A licence plate with a single letter, ‘R’, sold for HK$25.5 million (US$3.18 million) at the Lunar New Year auction held by the Transport Department on Sunday at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai. This was the second-highest amount paid for a vehicle registration mark in Hong Kong, the highest being when the letter ‘W’ fetched HK$26 million at the 2021 Lunar New Year auction.
The letter ‘R’ is associated with a lucky number in Chinese fortune-telling and with racing cars. The bidding started at HK$5,000 and went through 60 rounds before it reached its final price.
There were 48 other registration marks up for bidding and the total sales from the auction came up to HK$30,726,000. The second-highest sale for the day was for the number plate 292, which went for HK$850,000. The number 9 is considered lucky as its pronunciation is the same as the Chinese word that means ‘long-lasting’.
There were several plates with the number 8, which is associated with the word “fortune” in Chinese. Some of the plates on auction with this number included HE 1388, HK 2883, UU 88, TT 888, and VV 8888.
Header image credits: Christian Junker via Flickr
