Annette Sharp: Who has spent $11.5m on NSW-1 number plate?

Whoever has spent the eye-watering $11.5m for a heritage number plate, turning an item once considered an exercise in vanity into a highly sought-after commodity, writes Annette Sharp.

This old black and white picture shows cars bearing the number plates 1, 2 and 3.

Real estate, stock, classic cars, thoroughbreds, jewellery, wine and mistresses were once the preferred investments of the nation’s rich men.

Now, following the sale of a heritage number plate at Sydney auction house on Saturday, an item once considered a novelty, an exercise in personal vanity, has become a valuable and highly sought- after commodity.

The sale of single-digit NSW number plate NSW-1, released in 1910, smashed Australian plate sale records when it went under the hammer to an anonymous bidder for $11,505,000, doubling expectations.

On Saturday night, intrigue over the identity of the plate’s unidentified new owner was mounting in Sydney’s east, where interest in the plates is said to have peaked.

A spokesman for John “Aussie” Symond denied the one-time mortgage broker and noted plate collector was the new owner.

Property developer Harry Triguboff. Picture: Supplied

It’s rumoured Mr Triguboff owns the NSW-2 plate.

Symond’s passion for cars and heritage numbers plates is well known. Over the years his fleet of luxury cars have carried the plates NSW-111, NSW-707, NSW-737 and NSW-747, among others.

In 2017, Symond held the record for an Australian heritage plate auction sale when his NSW-4 plates, which had once adorned his Rolls-Royce Phantom, sold to a private collector for $2.45m.

Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond. Picture: Darren Ornitz

Symond sold his NSW-4 number plate for $2.45m in 2017.

There were whispers in Sydney’s east at the time that the buyer of Symond’s NSW-4 plates was Meriton billionaire boss Harry Triguboff.

Some claim Triguboff also owns NSW-2, which set a record in 2003 when it sold at auction for $680,000.

However, those plates were last sighted on a red Ferrari, a vehicle that seems to clash with 90-year-old Triguboff’s style.

The ageing property developer is generally more at home in a Bentley and was last seen climbing into one bearing his initials HOT-2, for Harry Oscar Triguboff.

Kyle Sandilands with his black Bentley bearing the number plate 001KS. Picture: Media Mode

Sydney property developer John Boyd is another who gets excited when heritage plates go to auction.

He is said to be the owner of NSW-8, sighted on a large grey SUV in 2022 and acquired more than a decade ago.

Other Sydney multi-millionaires who share an interest in classic cars — and plates — include car collectors John Laws and Justin Hemmes.

While Laws has long held the plates 123-123 — a quirky reference to a microphone audio test — Hemmes favours a monogrammed fleet.

His luxury cars bear the more affordable plates JH1, JH2, etc.

Also keen on monograms is radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands who drives a black Bentley bearing the plates 001KS.

The NSW-1 plate sold for $11,505,000 on Saturday. Picture: Lloyds Heritage Number Plate auction

Despite the result, there didn’t seem to be that kind of money in the room among the 15 people — all men except for one pregnant woman who looked to be with her husband — at Villawood auction house Lloyds on Saturday.

In describing the NSW-1 plates as a “unicorn” and the “most sought after … in Australia”, Lloyds indicated they’d been in just two known sets of hands in 113 years.

The original owner Lloyds records simply as the “first police commissioner” of NSW.

According to archives, the first “NSW police commissioner” of NSW, or man to hold that title, was a distinguished Scotsman by the name of James Mitchell, who held the position from 1915 until 1930.

The plates were released in 1910, the year number plates were introduced in NSW and five years earlier than Mitchell took over, initially as “inspector general” as the role was called and later, from 1926, as “police commissioner”.

Two men held the role before Mitchell between 1910 and 1915.

These were Thomas Garvin, who stepped down in December 1910, and Ernest Charles Day, who held the position from January 1911 to January 1915.

With neither holding the “police commissioner” title, there remains some ambiguity over who might first have been at the wheel of the vehicle bearing the historic plates.

What the auction states as fact is that the plates ended up with transport pioneer, politician and 2CH founder Sir Frederick Stewart in the 1930s.

Stewart died in 1961 when the plates passed to his wife, Lady Marjorie, who died in 2000. The plates were expected to go on the market then, but did not.

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