WEBVTT - 5: Stay Gold 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.640 It's nineteen ninety nine and a twenty something writer named 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:10.039 Clive Young is living in Brooklyn, New York. Like most 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.640 people in this tale, he's into Atari, but by now, 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.000 being into Atari is a retro thing, not a cutting 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.439 edge thing, and for Clive in particular, it's also a 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:21.120 budget thing. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.720 Jen X grows up. You know, I moved out and 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.400 I was absolutely broke as anything because a big recession, 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.880 just as you know you're getting economically established in the world, 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:33.720 I guess is the best way to put it. So 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.560 I came across my old Atari in my parents' basement 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:39.040 and I was like, all right, well, you know that 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:40.080 doesn't cost anything. 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:45.000 As you've probably guessed, that's Clive. He was an Atari 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.720 gamer from way back, and when he has to keep 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.839 a tight grip on his wallet, that dusty old console 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:52.440 suddenly seems interesting. 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:54.920 You know, you can't afford to go out, you can't 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.600 do anything, but you can sit around the apartment and 0:00:57.680 --> 0:00:58.560 play old Atari. 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.240 One of the best plays, says to find old games 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:05.399 are thrift stores. Remember this was before games were ultra 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.480 valuable collector's items, sealed in plastic cases and selling for 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:14.320 thousands on eBay. Old games were mostly considered junk. So 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:18.160 Clive went to thrift shops browsing for old, sorry vintage 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.640 Atari titles. But then he had a reason to walk 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.000 into a new shop in a different part of the state. 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:25.039 Love. 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.080 I was living in Brooklyn at the time, but I 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.800 was dating this girl who she lived out in Long Island, 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.840 which you know is the birthplace of American suburbia, and 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:38.760 I would go visit her on the weekends and go 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:40.600 out to all the garage sales because I was if 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.800 you're living on an extraordinarily limited budget, such as I was, 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:46.280 and I would come across all these old Atari games 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.320 that were like twenty five cents fifty cents. I wound 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.960 up collecting literally hundreds of Atari games. I think before 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:58.080 I basically quit, I probably had the better part of 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.000 probably four hundred and fifty different games. 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.920 That's how a thrifty Clive finds himself at Edley Electronics 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.720 on Long Island, which was less of a thrift store 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:10.400 and more of a junk store full of well loved 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.760 electronics gear. Think of it like a best buy, only 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.280 everything is cheap and probably missing a plug. 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:18.760 Me once every two three months, I'd stick my head 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.520 in there and that particular day, I got a call 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.919 from a friend who also knew the place, and he said, oh, 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.240 they got some great Atari stuff in there, going so yeah, 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:31.720 I stopped by. He had already swiped some of the 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:34.320 really good stuff that I never found, like the Atari 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:35.680 Gremlins and things like that. 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.000 Gremlins based on the movie is one of the more 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.560 rare Atari titles. It would be a good find. But 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.280 that's not what Clive sees. As he rummages through this 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.440 box of Atari, he spot something odd. It's an envelope. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:53.720 There was a letter envelope just tucked in the side 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:55.640 of a shoe box, and I opened it and I 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:57.119 found those photos. 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.480 At first, Clive isn't sure what those photos depict, but 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.239 they turn out to be an amazing discovery, far more 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:09.800 interesting than an old Gremlins game. Even though seventeen years 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.119 had passed since the Sword Quest titles had first been released, 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.720 there had never been any absolute confirmation that all five 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.679 prizes for the contest had been made. It was possible 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.639 Atari just made them as needed, and only two were 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.960 confirmed to have been handed out. Maybe there wasn't a 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.919 sword or a philosopher Stone after all. Maybe fans were 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.760 chasing something that didn't even exist. But as Clive begins 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.920 sifting through the old photos, he realizes that he's holding 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.600 a part of Atari history. 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:44.880 I could tell it clearly has said something to do 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:47.160 with the actual company, because one of the photos has 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.480 a giant Atari logo up on the wall in the background. 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.840 Clive keeps flipping through the photos. There, among snapshots of 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:59.040 the Fireworld contest and some very retro hairstyles, is a 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:03.280 clear shot of the grand prize, the Sword of Ultimate 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:09.320 Sorcery in ety Electronics. Clive is holding real, irrefutable proof 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.400 the sword for the contest, which has never surfaced, is real. 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:18.640 But what do you do with this information? And more importantly, 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:21.479 how do you make sure you leave the store with 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.039 the first and maybe only image of the most sought 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:29.240 after prize in gaming history. After all, no one said 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:35.000 those photos were for sale for iHeartRadio. This is the 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.400 legend of sword Quest. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:50.600 this is episode five Stay Gold. When Clive found those 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:55.520 photos and his accidental archaeological dig at Edley Electronics, he 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.960 was resurrecting memories not just of sword Quest, but Atari 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.760 as a whole. It had struggled in the intervening years, 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.400 changing hands multiple times, and was constantly in a foot 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:12.200 race with other video game manufacturers. Atari, like sword Quest 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:13.520 had imploded. 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.800 It's also a little bit of like a Hubris thing, like, 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.440 look at this big contest that they had planned and 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.640 these big prizes that they had planned, and it never 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:27.760 quite comes to conclusion. So it's almost like a metaphor 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.320 for the industry and Atari itself in a way. 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.159 But finding moldy photos of a gaming contest seems kind 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:41.560 of unnecessary. Shouldn't someone have been taking photos or video? Well, No, 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.000 Atari had what you might call a poor institutional memory. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.720 There wasn't much of a paper trail that was retained 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.520 for the contest when Atari changed hands in nineteen eighty four. 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:57.240 It only obfuscated things further. That's why Clive's find was 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.520 such a big deal, and it's why sword Quest remains 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:04.960 such an enigmatic event. No one was taking notes. Each 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.080 of the photos tell a little bit of the story. 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.240 There's Michael ride Out, one of only two winners, standing 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.560 over his prize, the chalice, which is still in its 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:18.440 ornate glass case. The curtains of the hotel's ballroom are 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:22.000 open behind him letting in light. There's an image that 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.320 has row after row of players, an older woman pacing 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.000 in the space between them, like a stern headmistress at 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.640 a boarding school. Another one has glimpses of other contestants, 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.240 all wearing a red Fireworld t shirt that atari probably 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:38.560 handed out like a team uniform. There's a close up 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.960 of the chalice, a stern man standing sentry next to it, 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:47.240 and of course the sword. It sits at an angle 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.520 on a small table, a white cloth underneath it, a 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:54.240 gold and jewel encrusted hilt sparkling. Even though the photo 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.080 itself isn't too sharp. Maybe some people thought the sword 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:02.040 would be cheap, looking like a movie price, but it's radiant, 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.560 it's well crafted. To a lot of people, this would 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.280 all look vaguely weird, like a Dungeons and Dragons game 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.720 gone high tech. But Clive knew a lot of the background. 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.880 Sword Quest had been a part of his childhood. Like 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.400 many gamers, he had screamed in frustration while trying to 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:22.240 win these prizes. 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.400 When I was like thirteen, fourteen years old. I mean, 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.520 that was big selling point of the game was get 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.080 it and you'll figure it out, and you could win. 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.400 You know, this cool stuff, and of course it's all 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:33.920 based on clues in the comic book and this and that, 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.040 but you know, being a fourteen year old kid, the 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.480 comic book gets torn up and of course lost in 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:40.200 the house within like you know, a week. 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.840 Finding the photos at Edley Electronics was about as likely 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.160 as winning the contest. It was more of a junkyard 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.600 for electronics. Personal effects didn't really belong there. 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.000 It was where electronics went to die and where hobbyist 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.400 electronics went to die. So there's you know, half of 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.720 a model airplane, there's a couple of broken turned there's 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.400 boxes of old tubes, any random random and I cannot 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.960 stress random enough, like heating coils of just somebody would 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.640 need it somehow. All this stuff would wind up in 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:14.080 the metal shelves at this store. 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.800 Clearly, someone probably a contestant, stuck the photos in a 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.400 giant box of Atari games and forgot about them. Then 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:25.880 they were donated or maybe sold for a song and 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:30.360 forgotten until Clive showed up, And it was serendipitous that 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:34.160 he did. Whoever ultimately picked up the photos needed to 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:39.760 know about sword quest, about golden chalices and swords. Otherwise 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.600 the photos would probably be pitched into the trash, and 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.679 to this day, atari collectors would be debating over whether 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.560 the sword had ever even been made. Clive knew this 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:53.040 was important, but they weren't in his possession just yet. 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.360 According to Clive, the clerks at Edley couldn't completely be 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.080 trusted not to give someone a hard time. That's because 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.040 the store was manned by two cranky older men who 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.640 resembled Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show. 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:08.840 It was a strange place. It was about the size 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.920 of the small supermarket. It was run by these two 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.360 old guys who sat behind the counter, and they just 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:16.760 had duop playing all day, and all they did was bicker, 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.800 bicker with each other, bicker with their customers, the whole bit. 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:25.080 The question was should Clive try to slip the photos 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.319 past them or keep them in sight. If he showed 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.600 them off, maybe they'd hesitate, ask him why he's looking 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.760 to buy someone else's personal photos and demand he hand 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:36.480 them over, or worse. 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.480 It's interesting. If I bring it up to the counter, 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.960 the two cranky guys are either going to say I 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:44.960 can't have it, or they're going to say, oh, that's 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:45.640 twenty bucks. 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:51.200 Remember Clive's disposable income was minimal, so we opted for 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:55.240 a little subversion. With a deep breath, he went up 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:55.800 to the counter. 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.640 You know, it's some random photos that looked like they 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.040 came out some of these photo albums. There wasn't a 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:03.760 lot of thought put into it. I just sort of 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.319 put in a pile of stuff that I was buying 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:08.440 from them, like with the you know, manuals or whatever, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.200 and they didn't even glance at it. I probably bought 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.200 the whole pile for like five bucks, I'm sure. 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.440 Clive went back home to Brooklyn and thought about what 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.720 he should do. He could, in theory, scan them himself 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.280 and find someplace online to post them, but he also 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.600 needed them to be vetted in some way. He thought 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.000 he knew what they were, but he wasn't sure. Remember 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.760 this was nineteen ninety nine, and it wasn't so easy 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:37.600 to just look up information about a retrogaming contest, so. 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:39.160 It's like, all right, this has to be some sort 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:43.240 of officially sanctioned thing. At the time, there was a really, 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.880 at least in the very small world of Atari fans, 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.320 a big zine called twenty six hundred Connection. So I 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.680 sent the photos to them because I figured they'll know 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.199 what the heck this is, you know, I mean, I 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:56.640 had a pretty good idea, all right, it must have 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:57.680 to do with that contest. 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.679 Twenty six hundred. Connection was a fanzine or fan magazine 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.640 for Atari fans. They published the photos and the Atari 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:11.520 fan community was intrigued. The photos also wound up online, naturally, 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.959 and Kurt Vendel, the late Atari historian, shot Clive an email. 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.640 I remember I got an email from asking, Hey, would 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.560 you like to donate these to my museum? And the 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.160 thought was no, but. 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.280 Clive wanted to hang on to the photos. 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:31.320 Finding the photos was one of the best moments that 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.000 I had out of the collecting, because a lot of 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.720 the collecting, particularly at that time, I mean, the atmosphere 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.480 and the attitude may have changed, but a lot of 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.440 the collecting really came down to, hey, look what I found. 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.600 I have it. You don't, whether online or meeting people 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.199 in person or whatever. And you know, there's a certain 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.040 amount of okay, bragging rights, absolutely, but you know it's 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:56.880 maybe not the best look on anyone. And I was 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.080 as guilty of that one as anybody else. 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.600 There was some pride in making a discovery but Clive 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.439 also thought the pictures were a kind of public record, 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:09.480 and seeing them in twenty six hundred Connection gave them 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.840 a kind of validity. The fine reignited conversation about the 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.920 fate of the sword quest prizes, and it killed the 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.080 theory that Atari had only had the prizes made prior 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:24.080 to each contest. If they made the sword the final prize, 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.440 then they almost certainly made all of them. Here's rus 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.120 Perry Junior, who edited twenty six hundred Connection. 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.400 I remember back in the day some people speculated that 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.000 they weren't actually making the prizes until like right before 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:42.360 the contest the championship. But the problem is, we've seen 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.800 the picture of the sword. It does give you an 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.040 indication that maybe they did actually make them all at 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.959 the beginning. So the theories about them, like especially the 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.640 Philosopher's Stone the last one, probably didn't exist. Well, it 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:58.080 might have, especially with a contest. I know, again, there's 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.640 so many legal restrictions. It is possible they had to 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:05.520 actually have the promised prizes forehand legally before they could 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.400 announce the contest and the prizes that. 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:12.439 Could be true legally, Atari might not have been able 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.680 to promise prizes that weren't yet made either way, two 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.920 were awarded and accounted for the talisman and chalice, and 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:25.960 three were not the crown, the Philosopher's Stone, and the sword. 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:30.800 The sword at least was now a confirmed physical object, 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.719 but that still doesn't account for what happened to them 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.240 When the contest was canceled with the sword reel. It 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:42.040 made one prevailing theory much stronger. That theory was presented 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.720 by Kurt Vendell, who once insisted that after speaking at 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.679 length with the Tari employees, he had determined their fate. 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.240 Could Atari have simply sent the prizes back to where 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.440 they were made at the Franklin Mint, like returned them 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.440 for a refund. Could the Franklin Mint have come back 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:04.120 into possess of the prizes. Okay, it's a theory, let's 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.560 test it out. But we know you're wondering, what the 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.400 hell is the Franklin Mint. 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.480 The American dollar is easy, but if you want the 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.240 Russian ruble or Japan's five hundred yin or say shells 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.200 ten rupees. If you want the coins that are legal 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.560 tender in over one hundred countries, you can either travel 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.640 the world or telephone the Franklin Mint for coin sets 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.320 of all nations. The Franklin Mint has done it for you, 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.280 worked with central banks and government. 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:37.320 It's human nature to collect things. Maybe it's books, maybe 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.640 it's comics or baseball cards, atari games, rubber bands. We 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.400 hoard things, hopefully not in a way that lands us 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.920 on television for all sorts of reasons. The Franklin Mint 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:53.920 turned that urge into a multi million dollar business. In 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.600 nineteen sixty four, a man named Joseph Siegel took notice 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.520 of two events, the death of General Douglas MacArthur and 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:06.040 news reports of a run on silver dollars. Siegel realized 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.280 that if people were so hungry for silver coins, maybe 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:13.440 he could get them to buy commemorative silver medals, like say, 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:17.440 one depicting General MacArthur. This led to the creation of 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:23.240 the National Commemorative Society. But the National Commemorative Society needed 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:28.120 someone to make their commemoratives. Supposedly, Seagull tried a few options, 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.240 but wasn't happy with their quality, so he founded a 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:36.800 new company called General Numismatics, with a division called Franklin Mint. Eventually, 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.320 Franklin Mint became the dominant part of General Numismatics, which 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.320 would soon change its name to reflect that, and among 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.400 many other lines of business, was selling their own limited 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:51.440 runs of coins and medals to collectors. Tell people you're 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.400 only going to make ten thousand Queen Elizabeth the Second 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.200 coins and give them a deadline to order, then watch 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.400 them develop a nineteen sixties version of Fomo the fear 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:05.520 of missing out. This strategy worked really well early on. 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.600 Joseph only made the coins after he had gotten the 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.200 orders and was in no danger of getting stuck with 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:16.960 unsold inventory. The themes were endless, History's most Famous Women, 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:21.640 the history of the Catholic Church of Richard Nixon commemorative medal, 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:24.160 because otherwise Richard Nixon might. 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.720 Be forgotten, because people have got to know whether or 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:28.080 not their president's a crook. 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.200 Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got. 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:37.200 The Mint developed a devoted clientele, and their ideas got 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:42.560 more and more ambitious, maybe too ambitious. One employee, overwhelmed 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.400 with all the Mint's projects, was said to have keeled 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:49.000 over at his desk, dead of a heart attack. In 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.240 nineteen seventy one, the company struck a deal with astronauts 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:56.000 Alan Shephard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Russa on the Apollo 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.320 fourteen Moon mission to carry a payload of silver medals 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.920 into space. The idea was that the silver could then 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.359 be used to make commemorative coins, with the pitch being 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.520 that the material had been outside the Earth's atmosphere and 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.960 near the lunar surface. It was actually a pretty clever conceit. 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:18.119 The problem was that the Franklin Mint never bothered to 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:22.320 get NASA's permission. The agreement was between the Mint and 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:27.119 the astronauts, and while they weren't explicitly compensated, the astronauts 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.600 got to keep many of the two hundred medals they 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.360 carried into space. Some were given out to friends and family. 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.560 Of those the Mint got back, they used many of 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.679 them to make into mini coins. The stunt actually helped 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.600 to change NASA's protocols on bringing personal items into space. 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:49.320 It's not often a company changes space policy, but the 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:54.080 Mint managed it. However. The Mint's biggest obstacle came later 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.040 on its home planet. In nineteen seventy eight, the CBS 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.719 television news magazine show Six to Minutes devoted a segment 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:06.040 to the Franklin Mint, and, like most profiles of businesses 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:10.000 on sixty minutes. At the time, it wasn't glowing. The 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.560 show pointed out the fallacies of creating artificial demand by 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.600 limiting production runs and then having collectors expect those items 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:21.480 will increase in value. According to the report, many of 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.919 their collectible items were only worth their melt value, that is, 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:30.000 the intrinsic value of the raw material. There was no 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:32.840 premium placed on the fact that the coins had images 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:36.520 of famous historical or political figures, or that they had 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:40.440 been to the moon. After the report, the stock price 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.639 for the mint dropped by a dollar. The shine on 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.560 the mint seemed to dull. It was time for the 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.879 Franklin Mint to pivot. Joseph Siegel had left back in 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.520 nineteen seventy four and later started QVC, one of the 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.320 first home shopping channels. Striking coins was no longer the 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.680 windfall it had been, but the idea of something being 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:05.560 instantly and purposely rare was still viable. The mint itself 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:09.760 needed a makeover, and in nineteen eighty one it got it. 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:14.080 That's when Warner Communications bought the company. They were able 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.159 to because Atari's success had filled their bank account and 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:21.359 made it possible to acquire other businesses. No longer was 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:26.040 the Mint appealing exclusively to coin collectors like Warner and 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.560 even Atari itself. They were branching out into pop culture 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.080 as a whole. Over the years, they'd try their hand 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:37.960 at handsome leather bound book collections of literary classics. Star 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.000 Trek fans could buy a replica of the Starship Enterprise. 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.520 Wizard of Oz fans could procure Dorothy dolls. One tiny 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:50.359 ufo was accompanied by soil taken from Roswell, New Mexico. Yes, 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.960 the Mint sold dirt and did pretty well. Civil War 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:59.240 Chess sets, premium Monopoly game boards with tiny gold pieces. 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:03.639 There were figurines and glass sculptures, Elvis Presley offerings, and 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:08.200 miniature rolls voices. These were premium items made with durable, 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:14.479 expensive materials, and they cost money, sometimes hundreds of dollars, 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.080 and they encouraged a lot of collected all brand loyalty 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:23.199 collectors filled houses and cabinets with Franklin Mint stuff. It 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.520 was a pre Beanie baby craze. So the Mint did 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.320 another clever thing. They made it possible to purchase their 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.639 collectibles in installments. Maybe it was hard for someone to 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.159 grab a porcelain butterfly bell with twenty four carrot gold 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.280 for sixty five dollars, But what if it was in 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.360 three easy payments of twenty one dollars sixty seven cents 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:47.080 plus shipping and handling. 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:51.720 Of course, if money talks, here is endless conversation for 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.480 your family to treasure now and in years to come. 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:57.840 For a handsome hard bound cases, accompany the collection for 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:02.480 storage and easy reference. In charge and start your collection. 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:07.000 With the strategy of offering affordable art worked. By nineteen 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:09.840 eighty three, just ten percent of the Mint's earnings were 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.000 from minted items. The rest of the four hundred million 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:18.000 dollars in sales came from mass produced art. Inside their 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:22.520 manufacturing facility in Waua, Pennsylvania, were hundreds of employees and 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:27.120 technicians handling and smelting all manner of materials. A vault 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:32.000 on the factory floor contained the most precious materials, diamonds, rubies. 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.080 Workers were checked coming and going to make sure they 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.800 weren't leaving any heavier than when they came in. While 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.800 many of the products were sold in limited runs, some 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.840 were one of a kind. In nineteen eighty one, the 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.560 Mint made a golden key with a value of thirty 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.920 five thousand dollars at the behest of Stanley Home Products, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:53.800 which wanted to give it away during the company's fiftieth 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:58.080 anniversary to one of their star employees. The other major 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:02.560 project was, of course, sword Quest. The Franklin Mint and 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:06.879 Atari already had a kind of working relationship because the 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:09.800 Mint had its own publishing arm, printing its own magazine 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:14.320 for collectors. Warner tasked it with publishing Atari Age, the 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.439 fan publication for all Things Atari. The Mint even sold 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:22.440 Atari consoles to employees at its company store. Warner took 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:25.720 it a step further, tasking the Mint with making the 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.960 sword Quest prizes. Normally, this is where we'd interview the 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.440 technician or artist who made the prizes, like the blacksmith 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:37.680 who crafted the sword, and it's possible they're out there somewhere. 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.560 But according to Robert Murphy, a renowned sculptor and artist 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.040 who spent fourteen years at the Mint, over twenty two 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:48.359 hundred people worked there in the early nineteen eighties, and 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:51.000 the people who labored on the prizes may not have 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.240 had any idea what they were working on. Robert told 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:57.040 us it could have even been him. This is what 0:22:57.119 --> 0:22:59.000 he said to us via email. 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.480 Thinking back on working in the pewter department at the Mint. 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:07.600 I myself may have worked on one of these pieces. 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:11.199 We never had any idea where a particular model that 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:15.720 we made was heading. Each job had an individual work 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:19.320 number assigned to it. We would have a design sketch 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:23.679 or rough prototype delivered to our work area, not having 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:27.720 any idea where the final model was going to. Items 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.480 like swords often had pewter handguards that ended up being 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:35.600 gold plated and set with stones. We never had a 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:37.800 clue where the final product ended up. 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:42.240