The two Cancelled New Mexico plates illustrated
here, both from 1931, are the only known survivors from any year. Why
they were “cancelled” will no doubt forever remain a mystery, but we can
speculate. At that time (and until 1979) New Mexico was a plate-to-car
state, meaning that the license plates went with the vehicle when it was
sold. So these plates cannot have been cancelled because the vehicles
were sold. Our best guess is that the car and truck in question were
totaled in wrecks and declared non-repairable. Under those circumstances
perhaps the owners were required to return the plates to the DMV for
cancellation. The registration information for these two plates was as
follows:
1-429 Passenger: Registered to Paul E. Elmore of Santa Fe for a 1929
Chrysler sedan, s/n 235183, 2960 lbs.
753 Truck: The entry in the 1931 registration records for this truck
plate number says simply “See Supplement.” However, the plate does not
appear in the included supplement. It may have appeared in a later
supplement that was not preserved with the main records, but whatever
the case, we’re left with a gap in our knowledge about the plate.
Passenger plate # 1-429 Courtesy Paul Wallace. Truck plate by Bill
Johnston. (Note that the double-L spelling of “Cancelled” is an accepted
spelling of the word, but the single-L spelling is more favored today.)
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