Bahrain mobile number: yours for $13k

Eye-catching numerals demand high price

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 21st June 2004 14:12 GMT

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Fool, money, parted: those are the words which come to mind at the news that a Bahrain mobile and and licence plate dealer is offering "eye-catching" mobe number 9111119 for a cool 5,000 dinars - around $13,200 dollars.

The good burghers of Bahrain are obsessed with such numbers, and willing to shell out huge sums to secure the right numerals. Vendor Abdullah al-Hammadi claims to have previously sold a mobile number for 3,500 dinars, while one flush punter once parted with 28,000 dinars ($74,000) for a licence plate.

Although the UK does not appear to have caught the meaningful or auspicious mobile numbers bug, there is a healthy market for car registrations which form either the owner's name, or his wife's pet name, or some amusing word related to the driver's business.

Indeed, we understand that our own publisher, Linus "Fish Fingers" Birtles once offered a susbstantial sum for "E1 REG", intending to attach it to his beloved Rav 4. Sadly, it eventually went to the chairman of the Kray Twins Appreciation Society, who considered it "highly significant", "auspicious" and "eye-catching". ®