Multi millionaire unveils his unusual path to making money in Birmingham

A millionaire says his fortune is all down to selling a private number plate for £3k - and using it to buy a house.

Rod Sheilds, now 60, bought the number plate - 4VBF - in the 1980s for just £120. When he realised the number plate could be valuable - simply because it was rare to find a plate with one number and three letters - Rod listed it in the classifieds.

Within a day of listing he received a call and sold it for £3,000 in 1981 - equivalent to around £15,000 today, he says. Rod, from Birmingham, estimates the value of the plate today is in excess of £20,000 now - although he says "it’s only worth what someone is willing to pay".

The sale gave him enough to put down a 25 per cent deposit on his first house - a three bedroom property in Wolverhampton - and kickstarted his career as a property developer. Rod was able to double the value of the property fours year later after renovating the house and renting it out to four students.

He then used the money to buy another property and continued to replicate the process of buying and selling - and now owns a "substantial" portfolio of properties. When he’s not doing up houses, Rod runs a side business selling custom number plates for business clients, and says his best one - BE57APP - sold for £3,000.

Rod said: "I own a multi-million pound property portfolio now and it’s all bought on that one plate. I always put it down to that one plate purchase - it gave me the push to do it. I always knew there were opportunities out there, don’t listen to the naysayers.

"I’ve always read the Sunday Times as it had cars and houses in - my two loves. And it was there I discovered number plates. I didn’t know how much I could sell it for, I just thought ‘let me just try it.’ I just knew it would be worth something because it had one number and three letters - I just guessed the price and put it up for £4k and someone offered just over £3000."

Rod bought the number plate from a colleague at work - securing the lucrative plate for a snip of its final sale price. He said: "It cost two weeks wages - around £60 - to put it in the Sunday Times to advertise, so it was a risk. I put it in on a Sunday and got the call the same night and they came down that same night. They put it in a trailer and took it away.

"I sold the plate at about 17 or 18 years old and bought the house at 18 but didn’t complete it until 19. I’ve always been into property, and I wanted to buy at 16 but I was told not to because I was too young. Ironically, the property I wanted to buy was £9k and ended up being £13k when I was 18."

Despite now owning multiple properties and spending his time developing them, Rod’s interest in plates hasn’t dwindled. He said: "The plates were an opportunity from the paper - it had the classic car section. I’m an opportunist and I saw something that was undervalued.

"I sell what I’ve got with plates - everyone goes for their names, but I concentrate on business related. Your initials on a plate won’t generate as many leads as a unique business related plates, you’ll get more custom. For instance, we sold BU57 TAP - bust tap - to a plumbing business which generated leads and brand awareness."

Rod also focuses on combining number plates with domain names - something he calls the "ultimate marketing tool". He said: "I own the registration JU57BMV and the domain name BMV (Below Market Value). I see that as you turning your car into a mobile billboard.

"If you buy this type of plate, it’s tax deductible as you’re turning your car into a mobile billboard. It’s the ultimate marketing tool. I just buy the plates and hold them in stock. I’ve had plates that have been on for £5k and someone’s offered £2k and I’ve sold them."

Rod has also sold a George Michael themed plate. He said: "One day I was listening to Last Christmas by George Michael, and I Googled how much he earns from that song - which was around £250k a year in royalties.

"I wondered if there were any George related plates, and it turned out there were. I bought UG03RGE - first released in 2003 - the year he died for around £400 and sold it for just under £3k." Rod’s number plate site can be found here Unique Business Registrations