Bill Myers

When I lived in New Zealand I learned that standard issue New Zealand auto license plates were considered 'investment' items.

Some license plate numbers had a much higher perceived value than others, and people were often willing to pay thousands (even tens of thousands) of dollars to get a license plate number deemed 'valuable'.

We're talking about auto license plates. And as far as I was concerned, there was no difference in value between a license plate with 7 numbers or a license plate with 4 numbers. The license plate functioned the same. You attached it to your car, it made it legal for the road, and you forgot about it.

But for thousands of people in New Zealand, the numbers on the plate did make a difference. And they would spend thousands of dollars for a plate based on it's perceived value to them. (Examples of current values - HIZ BMW - $8500; 33BB33 - $10,000; 7Ø7Ø7Ø - $10,000).

To an outsider, this looks like insanity. But this price mechanism is the way most markets works. The buyers set the prices they are willing to pay, and the sellers respond.

This is why it usually pays to discover what price buyers are willing to pay for an item, before you set the selling price. Failure to do so can mean you either sell an item far below the current market value, or overprice the item and get no sales.