I’m not exactly sure what this says about Internet discourse, reading comprehension, pervasive marketing, and overall cynicism. But this story and discussion thread over at Newsarama is well worth reading. Apparently the Franklin Mint - the folks who’ve brought us so many pewter chess sets over the years, one piece every other month - is taking a bunch of quarters and “enhancing” them with images of the Silver Surfer from the upcoming Fantastic 4 movie. People who find these quarters can then enter a contest or something. As you can probably tell from reading the story, the initial details were sketchy and had to be updated later. But it did not take long for folks to start complaining about the government participating in a movie promotion. Now, I can’t quite blame anyone for getting the Franklin Mint and the U.S. Mint confused - but doesn’t it say something that people would have such an easy time believing it?
Update on this story here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Silver_Surfer_Coin.html
Apparently the US Mint is pissed off - you can’t mess with legal tender this way! Even I knew that!