Thais flock to auction of license plates with auspicious numbers

BANGKOK: -- Thailand's Department of Land Transport has already fetched over 16 million baht during its two days of auctioning license plates that carry lucky numbers in the capital city Bangkok, a TNA reporter said on Monday.

The auction has been very popular among Thais who believe in lucky numbers.

Officials at the auction said the most expensive numbers are ''8888'' and ''9999'' which were priced at over one million baht each.

Many Thais with Chinese ancestors consider the number 8 to be lucky because it rhymes with the Chinese word for getting rich, while the number nine is considered auspicious by Thais because of its association with the country's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose royal title is King Rama IX.

Mr. Pongphan Cherdchu, the department's spokesman, told the TNA reporter that there were at least 301 license plates on auction and around 200 people from the general public and car companies had taken part in the two-day-event during the last weekend.

''Among most popular numbers have four arranged singular numbers such as ''1111'', ''2222'', ''3333'', ''4444'', ''5555'', and so on.

The number ''1111'' was sold at 400,000 baht, while the ones with ''8888'' and ''9999'' fetched 1.37 million baht and 1.5 million baht respectively,'' he said.

The number ''2222'' was auctioned off at 380,000 baht and ''3333' 'at 470,000 baht, he said, while the number ''4444'' fetched 370,000 baht, and the number ''5555'' was sold at 460,000 baht.

''We sold ''6666'' at 350,000 baht, and ''7777'' at 410,000 baht. The cheapest ones were ''6060'', ''616'', and ''6464'' which each fetched 2,000 baht. We made more than 16 million baht from two days of auction which began on 23 October. We will travel to the northern Lampang province to organize a similar auction on 28-29 October,'' he said.

--TNA 2004-10-26

How much for other interesting number combinations?:

666

6969

12345

anyone else with suggestions to my three?

I like "1010"...

My wife always looks at a new reg number with a view to buying a lottery ticket!!!!!

The plates with multiple 8's and 9's always fetch the highest price ("8", as a synonym for the Chinese word "to get rich", being the lucky Chinese number, and "9", as a synonym for the Thai word "to improve or progress", being the lucky Thai number).