Getting a new license plate may mean a trip to the DMV and paying a couple hundred dollars for the tag and fees, but one local man says he spent $325,000 for a low-numbered black Delaware plate. NBC10’s Tim Furlong finds out why.
No one seemed to find it shocking when a Wilmington couple spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a license plate number during an auction over the weekend. According to those who attended, it’s a “Delaware thing.”
The Wilmington couple paid $325,000 for Delaware license plate number 14 during the Emmert Auction Associates estate sale at the Rehoboth Beach firehouse Sunday afternoon. Yet while this may seem strange to outsiders, it made perfect sense to those living in Delaware, where low license plate numbers are viewed as valuable assets that can be transferred across generations.
“When you live in Delaware you understand it’s a prestigious thing attached to license plates,” said Jeremy Watkins of Wilmington. “Especially black license plates. Especially low number license plates. People like to flaunt their prestige however they can.”
The man who paid $325,000 for the number 14 tag Sunday told NBC10 he actually thought the price was a steal. He plans on placing it on his wife’s BMW SUV.
Only nine years ago, a Wilmington developer paid $675,000 for Delaware license plate number 6. Some Delaware residents believe the low license plate numbers are good investments that pay off if you keep the tag number long enough.
Asia Porter, another Delaware resident we spoke with, doesn’t believe it’s a worthy investment however.
“It’s not worth it,” Porter said. “There are so many more things you can do with that much money.”
