March 22, 2010: "Political Correctness"

Author:
J. Kraljevich

Concept:
Our numismatic celebrity guest author observed matter of factly that the obverse motif of Jefferson Davis hanging from the gallows and the unseen reverse which states DEATH TO TRAITORS would have passed for political correctness (from a northerner’s perspective, of course) when this piece was struck in 1861.

Which we thought was an interesting juxtaposition with the startling imagery on this seldom seen item, and a clear, concise and that-will-definitely-get-noticed sort of a caption.

Captions that didn’t make the cut:
We briefly considered a version with an obtuse reference to Led Zeppelin’s "Gallows Pole" lyric, but felt that lacked the gravitas appropriate to this subject matter.

And several others based on the kids game ‘hangman’ in which the letters were underlined and some were still missing. The problem with that idea is that it really required us to use an overly-simple or straightforward phrase, lest some of our readers would have absolutely no idea what were talking about.

But after serious consideration, and despite the protestations of my wife (who felt that the caption used in the final ad to your left would be offensive to some), we ran it anyway.

Which means that if we get 82,000 letters of complaint, she gets to say I told you so, and I get to blame JK.