The Plate Ledger: Auction Results — Week Ending 30 June 2026

The financial year closed with a bang. Thirty-six plates changed hands across Collecting Cars and Plater in the final days of June, totalling roughly $1.32 million all-in — and more than 40% of that money landed on a single Queensland plate.

As always, every figure below is the all-in price: hammer price plus the auction house's buyer's premium. That's the number the winning bidder actually paid, and it's the only number that matters when you're tracking plates as assets.

 

The headline: 'Q57' clears half a million

A two-digit Queensland heritage plate, 'Q57', hammered at $500,500 on Collecting Cars. Add the 11% buyer's premium and the all-in lands at a remarkably tidy $555,555.

Short Q-prefix plates have been climbing steadily, and this result resets the ceiling for two-digit Queensland heritage. For context, the next-best QLD result this week — 'Q932', a three-digit — went for $77,700 all-in. The jump from three digits to two is now measured in hundreds of thousands.

 

The top five

NSW four-digit heritage held serious ground. '1633' and '1300' both cleared six figures, and 'N333' — a European-format NSW plate — proved the euro market has real depth at the top end at $93,054.63 all-in.

 

NSW letter plates: quiet strength

The two-letter and letter-number NSW lots put in a consistent shift:

Two-character NSW plates in the $23k–$34k band is a pattern worth watching — that's a meaningful step above where comparable lots sat earlier in the year.

 

Victoria: 17 lots, $107k, and a clear signature floor

Victoria was the volume story of the week. Seventeen VIC plates sold across both platforms for a combined $107,266.50 all-in.

Heritage and numerics led on value:

Palindromes and repeating-pair numerics keep pulling premiums over ordinary six-digit combinations. '169-696' at nearly $20k all-in and '808-800' at $11,377.50 both underline the point: pattern quality drives the price, not just digit count.

Signatures set a tight band:

Nine Victorian signature plates sold this week, and the pricing discipline was striking:

That's a floor around $2,600 and a ceiling around $4,000 — nine data points in a $1,400 band. If you own a Victorian signature plate, this is currently the most liquid and predictable segment of the entire market. Entry money remains accessible, which keeps new collectors flowing in at the bottom of the pyramid.

Two VIC custom-format lots rounded out the state: '5-XXX' at $2,950 and '8-III' at $2,701 all-in.

 

South Australia: signatures move as a pack

Five SA signature plates sold on Collecting Cars, all within a few hundred dollars of each other:

Add '2Y' from the same sale and the SA two-character signature market is currently a $3,250–$4,130 proposition — sitting slightly above the Victorian signature band. Interesting spread for cross-state watchers.

 

The rest of the board

Tasmania's '877' at $22,311 all-in is a strong result for a three-digit TAS heritage plate. The two ACT lots stayed modest — that market remains thin, and '99-888' at $2,250 all-in looks like value against comparable formats interstate.

 

Week snapshot

• Lots sold: 36 (Collecting Cars 34, Plater 2)
• Total hammer: $1,181,995
• Total all-in: $1,315,888.65
• Passed in: none recorded this week
• Top lot: 'Q57' — $555,555 all-in
• Most active state: Victoria, 17 lots
• Tightest segment: VIC signatures, $2,600–$4,000 all-in

How we calculate all-in pricing

The Plate Ledger always reports the full purchase cost, not the headline hammer.

Collecting Cars: buyer's premium of 11% (inclusive of GST), with a minimum premium of A$550. Every lot under a $5,000 hammer this week wore the flat $550; everything above paid the straight 11%.

Plater: buyer's premium of 7.5% (inclusive of GST), capped at $15,000 — with a minimum fee of $400 on auctions closing below $10,000, and $1,000 on auctions closing above $10,000. This week, '169-696' paid the standard 7.5% ($1,387.50) and '08-Y' hit the $400 minimum.

Passed-in lots are never counted as sales and are listed separately when they occur.

 

Protecting the asset

When a two-digit plate trades north of half a million dollars, the hardware holding it to the car stops being an afterthought. If your plates are worth more than the vehicle they're mounted on, they deserve mounting that treats them that way.

Browse our Victorian heritage plate brackets and Victorian slimline mounts — CNC-lasered aluminium, made in Melbourne, fitted using your car's existing factory mounting points.

The Plate Ledger is FLX's weekly record of Australian number plate auction results. All prices include buyer's premium. Results compiled from publicly listed auction outcomes; figures may be rounded by the auction houses.