License plate collecting with the Wizard

Quote: Wizard

Those aren't Arabic numbers. They have their own symbols for numbers, but for license plates and very official purposes they use the same 0 to 9 that we use.

The Chinese symbols are generally the province but sometimes other words like "police" or "rental car."

Hmmm... If not "Arabic", what do you call the "0 to 9 that we use"?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Hmmm... If not "Arabic", what do you call the "0 to 9 that we use"?

As per the bottom of the article you linked to "Incidentally, the numerals 0123456789 are more properly known as European digits."

I believe these are the Arabic numbers. I have license plates from the Middle East and confirm the numbering looks like this.

One thing I find very annoying about Ebay is sellers with outrageous minimum bids. This is supposed to be an auction site! Not a place where selfish sellers offer items at 10x their value, hoping a sucker will come along.

Here is a perfect example. These are nice and unusual plates, I grant you that. However a $10,000 asking price my foot! I put in several what I thought were reasonable offers to the seller and he blocked me.

From now on, whenever I see this non-auction items with a ridiculous asking price and "make me an offer" option, I'm going to offer $1 or $2, just to annoy these sellers.

Quote: Wizard

.

Here is a perfect example. .

Mistake to sell them all at once.
He'll do better breaking them
up. He doesn't want to sell, he's
just bragging that he has them.
It's an old collector trick. They
are very cool, I'd hang one in my
kitchen.

Quote: Evenbob

Mistake to sell them all at once.
He'll do better breaking them
up.

They are all number 144 so make a nice set. You could be right, hoping that there are four people in the world who need this Milk License plate from New York, who don't want to spring for four. However, breaking up sets is a cardinal sin in license plate collecting and almost never done. If the seller were to ask me for advice, I'd say to keep them together, just on principle.

Hey Wizard, are all your license plates mounted in your garage?

It's an image I remember from childhood. Usually there was someone's garage with old license plates mounted.

All the old guys hung their plates. It
was very common. My dads garage
was covered in them. He got them
from other states too, I don't know
how.

Quote: rxwine

Hey Wizard, are all your license plates mounted in your garage?

It's an image I remember from childhood. Usually there was someone's garage with old license plates mounted.

At my previous house I had one wall covered with license plates. However, I have about 2,000 of them in my permanent collection, which would be too many to decorate a garage. My current garage shows off my collection of highway signs.

Quote: Wizard

At my previous house I had one wall covered with license plates. However, I have about 2,000 of them in my permanent collection, which would be too many to decorate a garage. My current garage shows off my collection of highway signs.

Is there a legal way to get a highway sign? When I was young and foolish I 'borrowed' an interstate highway sign and smuggled it across the border back into Canada. I wasn't that smart when I was young.