888 Licence Plate Sells for $30,000

In April 2006, a car license plate: APC 888 was auctioned off for 237,000 yuan ( approximately US$30,000) in Guangzhou, close to Hong Kong, in Southern China.

Rich owners of Mercedes, Jaguars and other luxury cars, made bids for the "lucky 8s" which were among 300 lucky numbers plates auctioned.

A lady won the auction after more than 20 rounds of bidding.

8 is an auspicious number in China, because it sounds like "Good Fortune". 888 is even more lucky and it was this that drove up the price of the bids.

Guangzhou has plans to auction 2,700 lucky numbers: all the revenue will be given to the city's fund to help victims of road accidents.