天價的28 香港吉利數字車牌千萬港元拍出

HONG KONG — A vehicle license plate in Hong Kong sold at auction for 18.1 million Hong Kong dollars on Sunday, or $2.3 million, the highest price ever paid in the city. The plate carries the number 28, which in Cantonese sounds similar to a phrase for “easy money.”

香港——週日，香港的一張機動車牌照以1810萬港元的拍賣價格成交，創下香港車牌價新高。該牌照僅包含數字28，在粵語中的發音接近“易發”。

The new owner of the plate was not immediately clear. The bidder, who also snatched the license plate 232 for $174,000, said he was representing another party, whom he did not name, according to Oriental Daily News, a Hong Kong newspaper.

車牌新主人的身份一時還不清楚。據香港媒體《東方日報》(Oriental Daily News)報道，那位競拍者還以135萬港元拿下了另一個印有數字232的無字頭車牌。他表示自己是幫別人競拍，並沒有透露那人是誰。

The city introduced bidding for coveted license plate numbers in 1973, with the money going to charity. The most desired plates, which include the numbers 2 through 10 (1 is reserved for the police commissioner) and combinations of auspicious digits, are owned by some of the city’s richest and most prominent people.

香港在1973年引入車牌拍賣，所獲資金用於慈善。最受追捧的車牌包括數字2到10（數字1爲警務處處長專用），以及比較吉利的數字組合。它們往往被香港最富有和最顯赫的一些人納入囊中。

In 1994, the jewelry, property and entertainment tycoon Albert Yeung bought 9 for what was then a record of $1.6 million. The most recent peak license price was $2.1 million for 18, in 2008.

1994年，珠寶、地產和娛樂業大亨楊受成(Albert Yeung)曾以1300萬港元買下一個印有數字9的無字頭車牌，創下當時的最高紀錄。最近的最高車牌價是2008年以1650萬港元成交的一個印有數字18的車牌。

Ten years ago, Hong Kong began to allow a wide array of vanity plates using letters of the alphabet, which triggered a rush of vehicular declarations like MCDADDY, XBATMANX and WHATEVER.

10年前，香港開始允許使用包含各種字母排列的自選牌號，催生了一大批如MCDADDY、XBATMANX和WHATEVER的個性車牌。

Will 28 bring easy money? The answer is as uncertain as the identity of its new owner. But a 2009 study by Travis Ng, Terence Chong and Xin Du at the Chinese University of Hong Kong found that for three-digit license plates, including a lucky number such as 8 brought a price premium of 95 percent. The premium got bigger the worse the stock market did, jumping 11 percent for each 1 percent decline in the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

數字28會讓車主更容易發財嗎？答案就像該車牌新主人的身份一樣，並不清楚。不過，香港中文大學的吳嘉豪(Travis Ng)、莊太量(Terence Chong)和杜新（音）2009年發佈的一項研究發現，包含8等吉利數字的三位數車牌會溢價95%。而且股市越差，溢價越高：恆生指數每降1%，車牌就溢價11%。

Likewise, unlucky numbers brought down the price. The presence of a number 4, which is a homonym for “death,” brings down the value of a four-digit plate 27 percent, and the price drops further with each fall in the Hang Seng.

相應地，不吉利的數字會使車牌貶值。數字4在粵語裏的發音接近“死”，含這個數字會讓一個四位數車牌貶值27%，且恆生指數每次下滑，都會把價格進一步拉低。

“A ‘4’ is bad, but it is even worse in bad times,” they wrote.

“4不是個好數字，但是在經濟不景氣時，它會顯得更糟，”他們在這篇研究論文中表示。