@cdaquila I think FredK is advertising without paying for the privilege.
Isn’t NM “The Sunshine State”? Yellow numbers for the color of the sun. Or is it now called the “Land of Enchantment”? Turquoise is sort of enchanting. So either way, the colors make some sense. True, they may be hard to read, but that’s part of the enchantment … lol …
True, the license plates aren’t needed here in Calif, optional apparently, but whether you have plates or not, don’t try driving with a burned out license plate light bulb … ask me how I know … 
I don’t remember exactly why anymore but they quit having the prisoners emboss the Minnesota plates, so now they are just flat with the printed numbers on them. It used to be if you scrubbed the bugs off the plate enough, you could rub off the color on the number, but it was still there because it was embossed. I’m not sure what happens now and never managed to wreck one.
I used to like the old Iowa plates though that were either black or dark blue. You could tell them a long way off. Now they look the same as everyone else’s with a tiny little state name on it.
I think the yellow numbers on turquoise was an optional plate. But talk about being hard to read if it’s any farther than about 20 ft away. They now have a solid black plate with yellow numbers and a picture of chile peppers to the left of the numbers. Maybe the state troopers complained.
It was, however, easy to tell it was a NM plate.
Texas had blue sky art plates and the deep blue made reading the numbers very difficult in some light conditions, so they changed the deep blue to a more pastel blue after a lot of state troopers complained about them. Now TX has plain old no-nonsense black numbers on solid white plates, I kind of like them.
How about Florida?
The New Mexico state gem is turquoise, the background color on the license plate.
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I thought I had remembered a black Minnesota plate. Lots of them if you click on 1950-1980. Even had a leather plate at one time. Interesting. Everything you wanted to know about plates.
http://www.worldlicenseplates.com/usa/US_MNXX.html
If you go up and click on “United States of America” the list of states comes up and you can click on the state you want, then go back to the time period and look at the historical plates.
1932 seems to be the only year NM plates had “the sunshine state” on them. I’ve seen the new NM plates with the chili peppers, they look pretty good. I think those say “Land of Enchantment”.
Yeah then they went to “Land of Enchantment”. Maybe Arizona sued them or something.
My native State, Connecticut, was the Nutmeg State when I was a kid, named that because people from Connecticut used to travel through the Mid-West and West selling fake, wooden nutmegs. At least that’s the story I was told in school as a kid. I guess in recent years someone in State government decided that was sort of a bad reputation, so they decided to call Connecticut the Constitution State. Years ago the license plates were small white plates with black numbers, and the only ID for the state was CT. Now they say the whole name and Constitution State. Swell.
Yeah it looked like as the plates got bigger, they were also able to add the full name. Now that I think about it if you are stamping the letters and numbers on the plates, you are more limited to the graphics that can be done. So with the new flat printed plates, we get more interesting designs.
The turquoise/yellow plate was a special commemorative - centennial of admission? I preferred it to the 2 yellow/red choices I had when I moved to NM. I didn’t even recognize that the one I chose had hot-air balloons on it. License plates are a big deal here
‘New Mexico legislators are racing against time - and Colorado - to have the first specialty license plate featuring chiles.’
‘NM races to create chile license plate’
unlike education or roads or law enforcement or public health, the sorts of things Bay Staters waste their time on.
The red and green background is clever. In New Mexico when you get food, you’re asked “red or green chile,” and the proper answer is “Christmas,” i.e., both.
They ended up not using it. They look like this:
It won an award https://www.abqjournal.com/1175481/new-mexico-takes-home-americas-best-license-plate-award-for-chile-design.html
We’re last in education, worst for kids, but #1 in license plates.
The correct answer is whatever you like. I like red: they’re ripe and have a fuller flavor, not just heat. ‘Christmas’ is the answer of the weaselly politician who doesn’t want to take a stand.
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… which is why I flagged that newbie’s post as SPAM.
New Mexico chili’s are what my favorite Thai cookbook’s author recommends for many of the dishes. Fresh or dried, they are readily available here in San Jose at Mexican grocery stores.
I deleted the link to the possible spammer the other day. Not sure whether it was actually spam, but it had generated discussion anyway. Is that so bad?
Nevertheless, let’s please get back on topic and away from saying things like our neighbors to the south are trying to take back our land. I don’t know what that has to do with cars. Thanks.
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Try the Hatch greens some time, you might change your mind.
Back when I lived there, we’d drive down to Hatch every year and get a big box full, then take it back home and roast 'em on the grill. And back then the road from our house to the highway going to Hatch was occasionally gravel when the county managed to motivate itself, but usually dirt with potholes the size of moon craters. Dad had to learn how to replace the shocks living out there because he was too cheap to pay a mechanic to do it, and when I was older he taught me how to do it. So the Hatch green chile is directly responsible for me being able to work on suspensions.
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Yesterday I was in back of a Pizza Hut delivery Smart car. It was at a stop light so started reading everything, then looked at the license plate. The plate was FLU ***. My gosh wouldn’t you think they would have asked for a different plate than one advertising the flu for Pizza Hut? I know Minnesota tries to pull out real words to some extent but ones like “ANT” still get through. This was not a Minnesota plate though. I’ve told them before at DMV that I’d like to see the plate they are trying to give me first and if it is something like “DUM”, I’d exercise my right of first refusal.
Gee thanks. Something wrong here. It says 8 months later but it was from 2011! Did I flunk math?
The only other thing I will add is that Minnesota stopped having the inmates stamp the license plates so there is no raised letters and numbers anymore. If the plates are destroyed in a fire, maybe there is a secret code of something to find out who just burned up.