May 25, 2009: "Hawaii Five-0"

Author:
J. Agre

Concept:
it just seemed obvious that a Hawaiian fifty cent piece could be described as a ‘Hawaii Five-O’, thus causing lots of people our age to recall fondly their favorite episode of this mediocre 70’s era crime drama (every single one of which ended with Steve McGarrett’s then-classic "Book ’em, Dano"), suddenly feel nostalgic, and very possibly respond by purchasing a rare coin. Maybe.

Captions that didn’t make the cut:
First of all, it should be noted that we realized minutes after the deadline that the caption actually should have read "Also known as the Hawaii Five-O." (and not Hawaii 5-O). But it was too late.

Before that, we came up with a number of other less direct Hawaii Five-O references, including "Jack Lord was 2nd choice for the obverse.", but that seemed way, way too obscure.

We also very briefly considered doing a James Cook theme, with "Captain Cook: Discovered Hawaii, then stayed for lunch.", which of course is a reference to the legend that Cook was eventually abducted and eaten by the native Hawaiians. But then it seemed to us that an obtuse cannibalism reference is probably not the best way to advertise rare coins.

So we put the kibosh on that one.