If you have “CASH”, this $2 million license plate can be yours.

If you are one of nearly 10 million people in America with personalized license plates, you can “CASH IN”.

Just ask Cash or Claude Arthur Stuart Hamrick, a retired Bay Area patent lawyer who registered his CASH license plate in California about 50 years ago.

“Every time I traded cars, the dealers tried to buy them from me,” Hamrick, 83, said. Mercury news. “Every car dealer in San Jose wanted this plate. I told them I wouldn’t sell it for a million dollars.”

And he was right: the asking price is now $2 million.

Michael Modeki, the “licence plate broker” behind the sale, said California is one of at least a few states in the US that allows license plate transfers from owner to owner.

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Modeki said that in a state like California where the lifestyle of the rich and famous thrives, someone could spend $2 million on a flashy accessory, especially one with a good story behind it.

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According to Modeca’s website, Hamrick, the owner of the license plate, was one of the first attorneys in Silicon Valley to patent semiconductors. He hung out with the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs when the computer industry exploded in the late 80s and early 90s.

When Hamrick first ordered a CASH license plate in 1970, it was for a Buick Riviera. Since then, he has always been attached to Cadillac.

Hamrick moved to North Carolina years ago to be closer to his grandchildren, but he hopes the one-of-a-kind plate can earn him his last payday from the Golden State, he told Mercury News.

Toilet sign “secondary market”

Modeki, who has been interested in collectors’ cars and license plates since childhood, has been tapping into the license plate “secondary market” since 2015, the same year he learned California regulations had changed to allow license plate transfers from owner to owner.

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“I thought someone else would do it. Nobody got a hold of it,” he told FOX.

At least not here. Modeki says selling license plates is a viable business in other countries such as Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and the UK.

In 2008, billionaire Saeed Abdul Ghaffar Khoury bought the world’s most expensive license plate number 1 at an auction in Abu Dhabi, UAE. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, he paid an astonishing $14.2 million.

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In states like Texas and Delaware, license plate enthusiasts can bid on “expensive” plates at auctions. Delaware holds the record for the most expensive plate ever sold in the US – number 6 for $675,000.

Meanwhile, a “RARE” find in Texas has been sold for $2,400 in 2021. And “12THMAN” – the nickname of Texas A&M football fans – sold for $115,000, the most expensive plate ever sold in the Lone Star State.

READ MORE: Some personalized US license plates cost more than a car

Modeki found that numbers were more desirable than letters, but it was hard to know how valuable a particular plate would be. It doesn’t look like real estate or other industries with comparable sales.

“It’s all subjective. What you might have might mean a lot to someone else, and that someone else might have the means to pay,” Modeki explained. “That’s essentially what this market is: it’s not what it’s worth, it’s what it’s worth to someone.”

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Believe it or not, the CASH sign isn’t even the most expensive on his site. The California plate with the letters “MM” (Michael Modeki) can also be drawn if you have an additional $24.3 million.

“The market is very new now,” Modeki said. “We are very interested in the sale, but we haven’t had any big sales yet. I don’t worry about it. I think it will take time before someone decides to turn the market around and become a trailblazer.

“I think it will be exponential when it happens because it has been proven elsewhere,” he continued. “The market is not yet fully defined and I’m curious to see where it goes.”

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