Monday, January 7, 2013

An Iconic Tribute to America's Sucker Class



Sometimes my disgust over a commercial is mixed with a certain amount of admiration for the impressive level of chutzpah displayed by it's creators.  This ad for a Not Gold, Not Old coin certainly reaches that Gotta Hand it To Them category.

I mean, the narrator spends several seconds showing us the beautiful, gleaming thing as it slowly rotates on our screens as he discusses an entirely DIFFERENT coin which existed in the last century and which is NOT being offered for sale in this advertisement.  Then he makes his pitch- we are being offered a rare chance to own this TRIBUTE to history- a chance to buy a coin which LOOKS like the one which contained .9999 ("that's four nines!") gold.  In other words, a practically worthless copy of a coin which was itself quite valuable.

Maybe I'm being cynical here.  Maybe I'm selling the American viewing  public short.  But I can't help wonder how many people miss the subtlety and are on the phone ordering their Maximum of Five Not Gold Coins before the dazzling thing has faded off the screen.  I wonder how many elderly, hard-of-hearing, even-harder-of-thinking suckers think that they are being offered an opportunity to buy antique, rare gold coins at ten dollars a pop.  I wonder how many realize that there is NO demand for junk like this in coin shops or anywhere else, and what they are buying is a silly little trinket that might be worth more if it were filled with chocolate instead of the junk metals it contains.

Now, of course, I'm sure there are a few people out there who think that it's high time we saw the release of a Tribute to a coin- especially one that includes a cool-looking buffalo and that "iconic" Native American image.  They should feel free to go for it.  If they want a conversation piece with no actual value, nothing wrong with that.  But I really don't think that they are the target audience here- I really think that these ads are aimed toward people who don't know what the terms "tribute" and "layered" and "clad" and "proof" mean.  And who probably really can't afford to be buying pretty poker chips for ten dollars each.  So while I can admire the boldness of the seller, I can't help but feel more that a little disgusted at him, too.

5 comments:

  1. Yeah, this ad is catered to the dimwits out there who think gold is actually 10 bucks!

    Haha, jokes on you, dumbass LOL! I mean, there are some people out there who will see this commercial and THINK they're getting a GREAT deal on a piece of "history" all for 10 bucks! LOL! Oh boy, I've seen this ad a couple of a times, and I chuckle everytime. You do got to admire the balls it took to make this spot though. They try really hard to spice it up and make it sound authentic, praying you're too stupid to know what a "proof" really is, and to also think that gold actually costs less than your groceries, PSH!

    Not a bad ad though, it's pretty clever in its own way, but I can see how it would disgust you, as you put it.

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  2. What really hurts is how blasted fake they look. I've seen chocolate coins that look more authentic than this.

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  3. These are on par with the ads that offer to sell gold coins as an investment or a hedge against inflation -- the government just keeps churning out paper dollars, so you'd better invest in gold right now. And buying coins is definitely the way to go, because you don't have to register them with the government.

    If you listen closely to the rest of the ad you can spot the flaw in the theory -- if you need to access your money, just take the gold coins to a store, sell them and walk out with your cash.

    RIGHT -- walk out with cash. In the form of paper dollars. That the government just keeps churning out. Which is the reason you bought the gold coins in the first place.

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  4. OK, so it's "CLAD" in 14mg of 24 karat gold. There are roughly 28,349 mgs in an ounce. I will take their figure of 1,700 for an ounce of gold (which is a couple hundred more then I think it is right now, but I'm too lazy to look it up). So it's basically 1/2025 of an ounce making it's gold value a whopping.... 83 cents. So you could pretty much slice an atom thinner then the gold layer that is on this thing.

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  5. My in-laws bought each one of my kids a set of coins from their birth years. The coins are in a sealed plastic case and there's a dollar, fifty-cent piece, a quarter, dime, nickel, and penny.

    So, less than two dollars worth of coins. Sealed in a hard plastic case (repeated, because they kept telling the kids how important that was). All from 1989, 1992, 1993. (the year they gave these to my kids- 1997, so yeah, great gift choice for small kids!). The price they paid for each: $19.95. $5.73 worth of change that they paid $59.83...

    I imagine they have a few of these commemorative coins laying around their house too.

    Also, right now, in my jeans pocket, I have a quarter from 1982 and two pennies- one from 1978 and the other from 1962. Too bad they've been in circulation! I could have sold 'em for a heckuva profit! Maybe I still can. Shine them up with some polish and put them in a hard plastic case... Let me go check under my couch cushions.

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