You're So Vain, I'm Not

I never considered myself to be a vain person. That is one of the reasons that I have never bought a vanity license plate for my car.

Many people like the idea of having a name or cute saying on their car’s license. It generally costs a hundred dollars or more to obtain a custom plate. You often see plates such as Marilyn or Kingpin or UR14ME or some other clever acronym.

I personally could never be bothered. I always figured it was better to be anonymous, than have your car’s license identify you. If I was going to rob a bank or fly down a highway at 100 mph I would prefer that my license plate be harder for a witness to remember. I always thought a plate like CSR493 would be a lot harder to remember than KENBOB.

In some countries ‘special number’ plates are auctioned off to the highest bidder. Fourteen years ago in the state of Delaware, the Delaware No. 9 plate was bought for $186,500. The single digit plates 1,2, and 3 are reserved for the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state. The other six single digit plates are up for grabs.

This week the Delaware No 6 license plate sold at auction for $675,000. A twenty five year old man bought it for his grandfather. Certainly a nice gesture, but for over half a million dollars I could think of a lot of things I would have preferred to get. Vanity can sure be expensive.

The only vanity plate I might be interested in would be BLOMYMIND!