Prefix Number Plates.
The term "Prefix Number Plates" refers to car registrations that were in use from August 1983 through till August 2001. They were introduced to replace the exhausted suffix system which ran out of combinations. Each registration commenced with a letter which signified the age of the vehicle. This initial letter was followed by one, two or three numbers. Then after a space a further three letters completed the registration.
Incidentally, in common with ageless registrations it is possible to identify the area of the country the vehicle was first registered by the last two letters of the number.
Also certain combinations were not used during the normal registration process and were later made available to buy for use as private number plates. These were numbers 1 to 20 in all prefixes and also for prefixes J and later the repeating numbers ( 22,333 etc ) and decimal numbers ( 20,300 etc) were kept back.
Towards the end of their life, prefix numbers were changed every 6 months instead of yearly ( S prefix and later ), this smoothed out demand for new vehicles over the calender year and also ensured that the series would end in 2001 which is when the current system took over.
If you have any questions regarding any of the above , please contact us by email or telephone.
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Personalised Number Plates Information
Due to the unique nature of private number plates, for example "car registrations are not items of property in their own right. They are assigned, and may be withdrawn by the Secretary of State. They are assigned to the vehicle rather than its keeper" and many of the car registrations we have available to us involve a third party, therefore unless the registration you are interested in is one of our own stock cherished number plates it is subject to current availability. Similarly we rely on these third parties to inform us that it has been sold. If you see "your" cherished number plate on our website and it should not be there, we would welcome your feedback so that we can rectify the mistake. With regard to the Distance Selling Regulations, we must notify you that as the contract will begin as soon as payment is made, the cooling off period and right to cancel will no longer apply. This website contains cherished number plates from our own stock,car registrations where we are acting as an agent and unissued government stock.We reserve the right to withdraw from sale or change the price of any private number plate without notice. All personalised number plates on this website are subject to availability, D.O.T. transfer fee and some are also subject to V.A.T. at the rate currently set by the government. Additional costs are sometimes applicable for the transfer of personalised number plates to N.Ireland... E.&.O.E.
Proprietor : Datana Ltd Registered in England No 3100825, Vat No 675212635
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