September 28, 2009: "The Contest"

Author:
J. Agre

Concept:
We knew we wanted to feature this unusual and esoteric early quarter in an ad, but the question was how to do it in a way that would get noticed by the larger coin collecting (and ad-reading) community.

Which of course led us to the obvious conclusion: A hackneyed breakfast cereal-box style contest, though with a real and, in our undoubtedly biased opinion, valuable prize.

Captions that didn’t make the cut:
We had some interesting alternatives this time, including some home-grown, like this one:

"The ‘L’ is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.", though we weren’t sure that quoting Winston Churchill was quite hip enough for the CW crowd.

And we had quite a few ideas suggested by our most prolific caption-writing customers, including:

"What the ‘L’ does the ‘L’ mean?" (and similar versions thereof).

Ultimately, though, we figured the contest idea was the most intriguing, and we like intrigue.

So, if you know the answer, call or email us, and if you’re right, and you’re first, you’re in the money to the tune of 500 clams.