It's the biggest Facebook group of it kind - officially the UK's largest dedicated to private number plates. The group - Private Number Plates Spotted, For Sale, Wanted and General Advice - has a current membership of 247.4K, but that membership is rising sharply, and we expect it won't be too long before the group hits the milestone quarter of a million.
The highly active group majors on photos of spotted number plates from across the UK. In limited volume, the group also offers advice, and publishes a limited number of For Sale and Wanted posts. If you're already signed up to Facebook, it's easy to join the group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1617135635067116/, and we think you'll be suitably entertained. We don't publish valuation posts. But for anyone selling a registration we offer a free, professional valuation and free For Sale listing, which you can very easily set in motion here on the NetPlates site. So all the bases are covered.
Because the group is so large and is fortunate enough to have some intrepid spotters, those rare and entertaining plates just keep on coming.
Some plates even astonish us. We're frequently left open-mouthed at the imagination of UK drivers. Among some of the gems, we've seen a wealth of humorous plates owned by small businesses and sole traders. There are celebrity plates, diplomatic, some fantastic two-character adornments, and... Well, pretty much anything you can imagine, really. We restrict the published posts to UK plates, so you know you'll always get the most relevant photos.
Running the group is a significant commitment, with some out-of-hours investment as well as the more typical office-hours work. But we believe it's easily the best number plate group on the platform, and that's reflected in the volume of the membership.
SO NUMBER-PLATE SPOTTING IS A THING THEN?
Most definitely. The UK has for long had an association with enthusiastic spotting. Surely the best known example is trainspotting. But the dynamics of plate-spotting are very different. Not only do you need to notice unusual plates; to be a Grade A plate-spotter you also need an eye for humour and/or relevance. To spot connections between, say, the branding on a van and the number plate it carries. It takes creativity to recognise creativity, and great number plate spotters definitely have creative minds.
Generally, the more you know about the world of private number plates, the better at plate-spotting you're likely to be. For example, recognising celebrity plates when the car is parked, takes a good knowledge of who owns what. It's fair to say that once you start attempting to see words or patterns in number plates, it's hard to stop.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A CELEB TO BE A CELEB
Perhaps one of the most notable points about this particular Facebook group is that it shows just how many people are actually taking notice of private plates. When you buy a private plate, there's a very large audience of people who will give it the once-over. It's no wonder that these eyecatching artefacts have soared in value over the years.
