Victorian number plate ‘Q’ sells for more than $350,000

Overnight, Victorian number plate ‘Q’ sold for $362,000 before buyer’s premium through Slattery Auctions – believed to be the most ever paid for a single-letter plate in Australia.

A total of 11 bids drove the price up, with the winner having to pay just shy of $390,000 with fees.

It’s not known whether the new owner will have to pay to have the number plates posted from Queensland, where they currently reside.

The sale represents a 100 per cent increase in value over three years, with the number plates selling for $181,000 through a Shannons auction held at the Motorclassica show in 2019 – the first time these type of plates had been auctioned since their release almost a decade earlier.

Referred to as ‘signature number plates’ by VicRoads, ‘Q’ was one of 24 single-letter plates originally sold at auction in 2010, attracting a hammer price of $50,000 – with letters ‘I’ and ‘O’ withheld due to their similarities with ‘1’ and ‘O’.

At the time, ‘A’ sold for more than double that amount, bringing in $110,000, with ‘X’ coming in second place with $100,000.

Despite the new record, low-digit alphabetic plates still have some way to catch up to numeric plates.

In May 2022, Victorian heritage number plate ‘14’ broke records, selling for $2.27 million – just falling short of NSW ‘4’, which was the most expensive Australian number plate publicly sold, bringing in $2.45 million in 2017.