Illustration: Lu Ting/GT

"I think Shanghai's car plates might as well be made of platinum."

Because of the high bid price of Shanghai's car plates and the difficulty of obtaining one in the monthly auctions, the price of secondhand car plates on the black market has reached 120,000 yuan ($19,200), local media reported. A netizen joked that with platinum prices at around 286 yuan per gram, the 120,000 yuan could be used to buy enough of the metal to make a pair of plates. He added that the numbers could be made using diamonds.