CAR REGISTRATIONS
Personalised car registrations can be described
in a variety of different ways – personalised plates, private
number plates and cherished number plates to name but a few! In ‘politically
correct’ Britain a car registration number is the combination
of numbers and letters that is assigned to your vehicle so that it
has a unique identity. On the road this sequence is displayed on the
number plates which are now made from an acrylic (plastic) material
and firmly fixed to your vehicle.
Car registrations have been issued to vehicles since 1903 in carefully
planned sequences or series.The Motor Car Act 1903, which came into
force on 1 January 1904, required all vehicles to be registered with
the authorities, and to carry number plates. The act was passed in
order that vehicles could be easily traced in the event of an accident
or contravention of the law. Car plates are rectangular or square
in shape, with the exact permitted dimensions of the plate and its
lettering set down in law.
When all the available combinations in each series were allocated,
then a new series was issued and the Government soon realised that
it would also be useful if the series gave some indication of the
age of the vehicle. Our records thus tell us where and when a plate
was issued and what combinations exist from which you can select your
private plates.
Starting with A1 and moving up through the sequences to YYY 999 it
became necessary to add a letter to the end of the number plates in
1963. This letter became the significant ‘year indicator’
and the plates were called suffix car registrations to describe this.
Thus in this year the new series began with AAA 1A.Each year gave
rise to the next letter of the alphabet although the letters IOUQ
and Z were never issued to avoid them being mistaken for numbers or
other letters which looked similar.
By 1983 this series was used up and so the ‘year indicator’
and numbers were moved to the beginning of the plates to start the
prefix car registrations series, starting with A1 AAA.
By September 2001 it was necessary to begin the latest ‘current-style’
car registrations series which effectively stopped the use of letters
to indicate a vehicle’s age. Nowadays the new number plates
begin with a two letter area indicator code followed by a two digit
number indicating the age of the vehicle, followed by a three letter
combination made up of random letters. TT53 FAB is an example of a
current style car registration.
We have sellers of all the types of registration marks mentioned
above. To start searching now just use the "Find Number Plates"
link at the top of this page.
