Another thread here highlighted a conversation I had with my (Swiss) wife regarding number plates, I am not sure if it isn't just an urban legend. A low number indicates you are "an old Swiss family" and usually will have uninterupted passage through boarders into Switzerland (as has been the case for us when they have been doing blanket checks). The downside is that the locals will read the plate number and blast their horn at you for the slightest infringement of the invisible Swiss road etiquitte, as you should know better being "an old Swiss family".
If you register you car in person you are allowed to see all available numbers and choose, the clerk will be p*ssed at you but that is their job!!

Sources? Who needs stinkin' sources?

In some cantons low numbers are sold by auction.

Low numbers are sold (in many cantons) to the highest bidder. See the following thread: Number plate: "BL 8", 7400CHF and rising

I thought a low number meant you were a taxi driver.

It used to be in VD that < 1'000 were reserved for taxis. No longer. Not sure what the reasoning was for the change. Kind of weird to see a regular car with a low plate number though.

A couple of years ago in an auction in UAE, number plate 5 was sold for 7 million USD. Few months after that, number 1 was sold for 15M.

Wonder what 'UR 100' is worth??

It is true

In AG for example the really low ones are either police cars or auctioned of but generally AG 137 793 for example would mean that it belongs to a rather mature person but AG 447 791 would be some one who recently got their license.

The 100 00ers have annoyed me once or twice

Confused now, mine is SO -237 -528

Apparently ZH 0 is a complete cow to get hold of...


...I'll get my Tibetan coat...

Hello, are you Bruce from pistonheads and Atom interfacing with pitwall at Folembray fame? If so, hello again!

In Zug we call the slow old duffers the "four digiters". They're a menace

The general rule is that new drivers get the highest available numbers so the further away you are from it, the more experienced driver you are.

The saying is that the lower you are, the less you're gonna get stopped by the police.

So that means I will never be stopped as I have minus numbers

Dang, I never thought of that, I might do a bit of "Hello Australia" with some black lecky tape and see how I go!!

Heard similar statements before but I think it's just a myth. A friend recently got a car her plate is AG 129 XXX and she's 27... Unless by "rather matured" you mean no bearings to age but behavioural or physical maturity (which would be really weird). Or is 27 the new old now?

But 27 means she might be driving for a good 9 years now...isnt that experience not to be scoffed at?
Am myself 28, and was given BL 134 xxx

Bullcrap. I had 450 something Geneva plates, then 130 something Zurich plates, then 490 something Geneva plates all within a year. Unless there's some timewarp between Geneva and Zurich, that theory holds as much water as a decent sieve.

Nope! It's her first car. Got her license coupla years ago... Definitely an amateur on the wheels.

You bet there is a time warp. But on-topic: I got a low 200k number in ZH only a year after a similarly old and experienced colleague of mine got a 700k number. My Swiss colleagues told me that the Strassenverkehrsamt is simply collecting old numbers and as soon as they have a certain amount in a certain range, they "release" them again. So they do auction off the really low ones, but everything about a 100k is pure luck, nothing else.