Richard, thanks for the welcome, I can assure you 100% the RAF never reused a reg number, although this is believed to be the case in the RN. But beyond any doubt not in the RAF.
The reg numbers in the format 00AA00 were issued from hand written ledgers; each letter pair had a seperate ledger. Some numbers were never issued due mainly to clerical errors, i.e. turning over 2 pages instead of one. In general they gradually worked chronologically through from e.g. 00 AG 00 to 99 AG 99,
However if for some reason, a block of numbers was missed they were sometimes used at a later date. This was the case with one of the batches of Alvis MK6 crash tenders they received 03 AG ** when the numbers allocated were up to 23 AG ** .
So if you know the post reg of the subject car you can be sure it was the only vehicle ever to have that number, the next course of action would be to contact Hendon museum to see if the card is there, if it is you can purchase a photocopy. this may have recorded on it the car's original number. A word of warning The last time I was at Hendon viewing cards many were not sitting in their correct order in the card trays some were actually in the wrong drawers this is because some individuals given access on a personal visit had not bothered to put them back in the correct order. Regards TED
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