Historic Number Plate Archive

The NumberPlates.org Historic Archive preserves original evidence of how UK registration numbers were advertised and valued over time.

The collection includes specialist number plate magazines, newspaper advertisements, dealer catalogues, leaflets, price lists, auction material, motoring publications and historic online listings.

Rather than displaying documents solely as images, we index the individual registrations, asking prices, dates, advertisers and sources contained within them. This makes it possible to search for a registration and follow its known advertising history across different dealers, publications and decades.

Archive advertisements are also connected to our individual number plate history timelines, where they can be viewed alongside auction results, vehicle assignments, photographs and other documented events.

We hold complete original collections of several major number plate advertising publications.

These include:

Regtransfers Magazines

A complete collection of original Regtransfers magazines containing tens of thousands of historic registration advertisements.

Car Numbers Books

A complete collection of original Car Numbers books containing private registration advertisements and historic asking prices from across the publication’s history.

RNC News

A complete collection of original RNC News publications containing registration listings, number plate news and historic number plate market information.

These publications form part of our wider physical archive. Digitisation and registration-level indexing are ongoing, with additional records and original advertisement pages added regularly.

An archive listing confirms that a registration appeared in a known advertisement, catalogue, publication or other recorded source on or around the stated date.

The asking price shown is the amount requested by the advertiser at that time. It should not be interpreted as a confirmed sale price unless separate evidence records a completed transaction, and the advertiser cannot be assumed to be the owner.

A registration may appear more than once in the archive where it was:

• Advertised in several issues of the same publication
• Listed by more than one dealer
• Re-advertised at a different price
• Included in both printed and online material
• Advertised repeatedly over several years

These repeated listings help document changes in asking price and market activity over time.

Exact publication dates are used wherever they can be established from the original material.

Where only a year or approximate period is known, the date is clearly marked as approximate using terms such as:

• c. 1995

Registrations and asking prices are transcribed from the original source. Conventional registration spacing may be used to make plates easier to read and search.

Unclear information is not estimated without evidence. Where part of a scan or document cannot be read reliably, the listing may be marked as uncertain or incomplete.

The archive does not represent every number plate advertised or sold in the United Kingdom.

Some advertisers and publications are represented by complete or extensive collections, while others are represented by only a small number of surviving advertisements. Many private transactions were never publicly advertised, and some historic publications or issues may no longer survive.

Archive listings should therefore be treated as evidence of known advertisements rather than a complete record of every market event.

Not every registration featured in these advertisements has been indexed. We currently prioritise the shortest, rarest and most desirable registrations. As AI continues to develop, we hope to eventually index every advertisement in full and process the entire archive at scale.

Additionally, many of the PDFs may be hard to read, especially on mobile. We recommend reading them on Adobe Acrobat on a laptop or computer.

Archive material is displayed for historical documentation, research and commentary.

Original copyrights and other rights may remain with the relevant publisher, photographer, advertiser or rights holder.

Rights holders or authorised representatives can contact us regarding attribution, corrections or concerns about material displayed within the archive.

Historic advertisements can sometimes be difficult to identify, date or transcribe accurately. We welcome corrections and additional supporting evidence.

You can contact us to:

• Correct a registration
• Correct an asking price
• Identify an advertiser
• Identify a publication or source
• Confirm an exact publication date
• Provide a clearer copy of an advertisement
• Submit a missing magazine, catalogue or newspaper advert
• Report duplicated or incorrectly linked material

Please include the relevant archive page address and as much supporting evidence as possible.

The Historic Archive is one part of our wider research database.

Enter any UK registration to explore its known history, including historic advertisements, asking prices, auction results, vehicle assignments, photographs and publicly documented ownership claims.

A historic advertisement can provide useful evidence of a registration’s previous asking price and market history.

We offer free number plate valuations, cash offers and free zero-commission listings for owners looking to sell.