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Bob Seringer of Millsboro paid a record $79,500 for a three-digit Delaware license tag during tense bidding at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center on July 7.
“This is going to put the tag market on its ear,” said auctioneer Butch Emmert, when bidding passed the $70,000 mark for tag No. 303. The crowd buzzed and applauded – and some snickered – as the spotters took the bidding higher by $500 increments.
“Don’t laugh,” said Emmert. “This is the nicest tag we’ve sold in about 10 years.”
At least three bidders – one by telephone – remained in the bidding until Seringer’s $79,500 knocked the other bidders out.
Before the bidding started, Emmert told a crowd of several hundred on hand for the widely advertised estate sale that he expected the tag to go for a price “north of $60,000.” When the bidding ended, Emmert said the price far exceeded his expectation.
“It just shows why these low number tags are such good investments,” said Emmert.
Seringer, who moved to Delaware from New York with his wife, Karyn, said the number of the tag and the fact that it was an original tag attracted him.
The metal tag still bears the extra metal plate denoting that it was first placed in circulation in March 1931. “It’s part of the history of Delaware. We also see the value of the plate as an investment,” said Seringer.
Karyn Seringer, after the auction, said she wants her husband to buy her a new car to put the tag on. Her husband said it would probably be placed on a Jeep.
Bill and Pat Livingston of Dover and Dewey Beach owned the 303 tag prior to its auction. Pat Livingston said the tag was originally issued to her grandfather, J. Burton Wharton, a state senator from Kent County. “He passed it on to my mother, Sarah Wharton Wilson, and she passed it on to me. We’re selling it to help send a grandson to college.”
Livingston said the price fetched by the tag almost doubled her expectation. “It was overwhelming – a real surprise. I figured we get something around $40,000.”
Seringer opened the bidding after Emmert’s opening remarks at $45,000, and it was all up from there.
Emmert has been auctioning off low-number Delaware tags for at least 20 years. He told the crowd that the world record for a license tag was set 15 years ago when he auctioned off a Delaware tag with the single digit 9 for $185,000 in a similar auction at the convention center. “The owner of that tag has been offered $250,000 since then,” said Emmert,
During the July 7 auction, Emmert sold three four-digit tags that also brought almost double what seasoned observers thought they would. Tag numbers 8949 and 5215 brought $9,000 each while 5801 brought a high bid of $7,800. Before the auction, Emmert noted that four-digit tags that brought $2,000 to $2,500 10 years ago are now bringing just under $5,000.
The results of the auction show that there’s still plenty of room for surprise in the world of strong economies and supply and demand, even for a seasoned appraiser like Emmert.
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