The Swiss town of Davos hopes to boost its finances by selling a license plate for at least 100,000 francs ($100,000).
The mountain redoubt is seeking bids for the tag GR 35, whose letters stand for the eastern canton of Grisons and which until now was on a government vehicle. Davos plays host each January to heads of state, corporate executives and Hollywood stars at the World Economic Forum.
There are no vanity plates in Switzerland, so tags with low or significant numbers are collectors items and status symbols — and can fetch eye-watering sums. That’s because they are issued to individuals, not cars, and thus can be resold or passed on to heirs. Earlier this year, the low-tax canton of Zug sold ZG 10 for a record 233,000 francs, according to newspaper Blick.
Among license-plate aficionados, there is a special market for “exquisite and unique objects,” according to Davos’s website. The municipality’s obligation to manage community property and funds responsibly led it to set a price target of at least 100,000 francs, it said.
By chance, that’s roughly the amount locals will have to fork over for an increased security budget for WEF’s coming annual meeting. They approved the spending in a referendum last month.