June 2, 2008: "Extra Large Cent"

Author:
J. Agre

Concept:
We had a number of different advertising options on this item, from the rarity (it doesn’t get much rarer than ‘unique’), to the provenance (19th century numismatic heavyweight J.J. Mickely), to the bizarro and unique Edge Lettering (which reads ‘English United East India Company’) to the size (larger and heavier than a normal 1798 Large Cent).

Ultimately (and unapologetically), we decided to go with the one we thought would give us the best caption.

Captions that didn’t make the cut:
We briefly considered "Overweight, oversized and completely unknown – a tough way to be introduced to the world.", but thought it felt a lot like a lot of ideas shoved into one sentence.

In comparison, the ‘XL’ concept was short, sweet and memorable, and so we went with it.