In article om, "Dee D.
Flint" writes:

After playing around search the FCC database, the previous license of the
vanity holder appears to be marked as terminated not expired so that the
vanity call rules do not effect the numbers if the search is done correctly.
If one searches for expired only, what they get as a result are only those
that have lapsed due to non-renewal not those terminated due to changes in
call sign and not those terminated due to disciplinary actions by the FCC.

Agreed on all that but my point was somewhat different.

With one exception, the way the rules have worked for some time now is that you
can only renew within a time window of 90 days before or two years after your
license expires. So it would seem that the expiration dates would be spread out
over time, and not cluster in any particular year.

But a vanity call gets you a renewal regardless of where you are in the license
term. And when the vanity rules changed, there was naturally a spike in
application numbers - and 10 years later, a spike in expirations.

73 de Jim, N2EY