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Fun Plates

Motorists conducting business at New Mexico MVD offices are likely to come across unusual types of license plates displayed there which seemingly should not exist. On the walls of employee workstations one frequently sees what appear to a cross between vanity plates and specialty plates. For example, there might be a Share with Wildlife plate which, instead of the usual numeric serial number, says “DEER,” or a Protect Pollinators plate that has the letters “BZZZ” instead of numerals. Such plates exist for almost all types of specialty plates, and a close look at them will reveal the notation “NOT FOR REGISTRATION” indelibly imprinted vertically in small letters along the right hand edge of each one. These are a special type of plate called “Fun Plates” made available only to MVD employees. Aside from a purely decorative function, they also serve the purpose of promoting to the public the existence of New Mexico’s many different specialty plates, thereby encouraging wider use of them. MVD employees can order Fun Plates (which they must pay for) with any combination of letters and numerals that comply with the rules applicable for Vanity plates (and which fit within the available space on the plates, which is often less than that available on standard Passenger and Motorcycle plates). None of these are issued with validation stickers. (For comparison, true Vanity plates can be seen here.) Illustrated below is a sampling of Fun Plates which is by no means an exhaustive representation of the many types which might be seen in MVD offices, nor of the characters which might appear on them.

As mentioned above, all Fun Plates bear the legend NOT FOR REGISTRATION imprinted vertically on the right hand edge of the plate. These can be seen in the plate photos above, and enlargements of the legend from several of these plates are reproduced immediately below.

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