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90 comments on DrumBeat: July 11, 2009

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JoulesBurn on July 11, 2009 - 11:19am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The well-heeled participate in auctions to obtain plates with numbers that are significant metaphysically

That's no surprise. Phone numbers are also a big deal, and you see big lists of numbers being advertised in store windows. "4" is particularly bad because it is the homonym for the word for death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture

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HereinHalifax on July 11, 2009 - 11:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

So, if I'm looking through the Yellow Pages for Chinese takeout and come across a listing with a telephone number of 444-4444, you're saying I best take a pass? ;-)

Cheers,
Paul

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Jussi on July 11, 2009 - 12:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Wow, that never occurred to me. When I got a phone in Mongolia, I was shown loads of possible numbers, and, in fact, the shop was full of people looking at available numbers. I told the lady that I really didn't care about the number, it makes no difference to me. And she just looked incredulous!

This is just one of those things that happen when you live in a strange country: after a while you cannot be bothered to always think about why people do the things they do, you just start ignoring some of the weird things, especially when they don't seem to bother you.

I think in Mongolia people also use late night chat shows on TV to sell and buy auspicious phone numbers.

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The Dude on July 11, 2009 - 12:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Lest there be any doubt: Guangzhou Journal; First Comes the Car, Then the $10,000 License Plate - New York Times

By JIM YARDLEY
Published: July 5, 2006

Photos: In Chinese culture, 8 is the luckiest number, while 4 is the unluckiest.; At a recent auction in Guangzhou, one plate featuring several lucky numbers fetched more than $10,000. (Photographs by Nelson Ching for The New York Times)

At a government auction inside a dingy gymnasium, a young businessman named Ding walked away a happy winner the other day. Like everyone else, he was bidding on license plates and did not seem to mind that his cost $6,750.

For the same money, Mr. Ding could almost have afforded two of the Chinese-made roadsters popular in the domestic car market. His bid was almost 20 times what a Chinese farmer earns in a year, and almost 7 times the country's per capita annual income.

And yet, in the auction in this manufacturing capital in southern China, Mr. Ding, who gave only his last name, could not even claim top price. The most expensive plate -- AC6688 -- fetched $10,000 on a day when officials sold hundreds of plates for a total of $366,500.

''I thought it was rather cheap,'' said Mr. Ding, 30, a gold chain glinting under his open black sport shirt, as he walked off with the paperwork for APY888. ''Since I have a nice car, I thought I should get a nice plate.''

These guys are total pikers compared to what they'll pay in, where else, the UAE: Your oil dollars at work - $9.8 million license plate auction in the UAE

The fascination with distinctive tags is a world-wide phenomenon, but $926,000 for a plate that says "50G" is uniquely asinine.

Snippet of an article, but there are 75 comments, very heated of course; here's one:

Simply ridiculous, that makes me want to get a tesla

If you have 45 minutes, I HIGHLY recommend the video
It is on the "richest people of the middle east", and it mainly focuses on their car collections.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6312295472862851569

In regards to the movie link,

It discusses the formation of an Arab version formula1 (A1)
A man that has different colored cars for each day
a man that has a $ 10,000,000 car collection
and license plate buying

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FMagyar on July 11, 2009 - 1:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Lock on target achieved, launch!

.

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sldulin on July 11, 2009 - 2:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Redneck version:
My brother inherited his father-in-law's 1984 Ford 1 ton 4WD PU...dents aplenty with rust and the green patina that old cars stored outside in the NW acquire over time...he hadn't driven it two weeks before he had a couple guys make $3,000 offers for it...you guessed it, they wanted the plates... 4HUNTN

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LoveSalem on July 12, 2009 - 3:59am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

A few years ago I published an op-ed with a right-wing Michigan think tank that got a small bit of attention (UPI story, interview) with this proposal: Have states use an ebay style auction to assign vanity plates, instead of ignoring the vast amounts that people are willing to spend to have the perfect plate. It's an even better idea now, what with the economic collapse stressing states very hard but also the prevalence of handheld phones/computers that would make it very easy for people to participate.

Imagine a state-owned website that daily lists a new set of auctions, all vanity plates set to expire within two weeks. With an RSS feed, people could be alerted to plates they are interested in bidding on. So the bidding goes for two weeks -- if the current person with the plate isn't the high bidder, they lose the plate and have to get new (regular) ones, or win another auction for a different vanity plate.

Lots of people wouldn't bid a dime for a vanity plate, and of course they don't have to. But there are a lot of plates that are just so perfect for certain businesses and individuals that you know the idea is a huge lost opportunity. States could set a minimum reserve price on all vanity plate combinations at the current, fixed price, and so they risk nothing from this.

John Gear
lovesalem.blogspot.com

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elwoodelmore on July 12, 2009 - 6:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

i recommend you pay $1million for a plate that reads: 1-800-inutile.

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90 comments on DrumBeat: July 11, 2009

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