This Is The Greatest And Best Trillion Dollar Coin In The World… Tribute

Do you remember the trillion dollar coin? A few weeks and, seemingly, thousands of news cycles ago, the one trillion dollar platinum coin had its moment, capturing the imaginations of wonks everywhere, and injecting a few CCs of life into the debt ceiling showdown. Then, the GOP caved, and the coin faded into obscurity, but now, those nostalgic for the January 2013 era can own a piece of history that never was: a tribute trillion dollar coin, complete with certificate of authenticity from The New England Mint. Unfortunately, they appear to be a day late and a trillion dollars short.

Shortly after the 2012 election, Republicans began hinting that they planned to use the upcoming debt ceiling increase as a means to extract political concessions from just-victorious President Obama, who, in turn, promised not to play that. This left the President with several options.

The first was simply to refuse to negotiate, and hope that Republicans would come to their senses, and pass a debt limit increase.

The second two options involved the President raising the debt ceiling unilaterally. There was the so-called Constitutional option, whereby he unilaterally raises the debt ceiling under an interpretation of Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

Then, there was the popular-among-wonks “Platinum Coin Option,” whereby the U.S. Treasury would exploit a legal loophole that allows them to mint platinum coins in any denomination, simply mint a pair of $1 trillion platinum coins, and deposit them into the treasury.

As it turned out, option number one worked out, and the Republicans caved, extending the debt ceiling temporarily, but effectively exposing the emptiness of their threat.

Now, after a run in the public consciousness that crested with a feud between The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart and economist Paul Krugman, the coin is back. On Saturday morning’s Up With Chris Hayes, the New England Mint debuted a two-minute ad for a “tribute proof” of the coin, which also doubled as a stealth satire of other ads for worthless coin gimmicks. Noting that the federal debt exceeds $16 trillion, the narrator announces a strict 16-coin limit per order, and pegs the original planned issue price at $1 trillion, both common tropes of the junk-coin biz. Unlike those other coin ads, though, this one goes out of its way to remind viewers that this is not the greatest coin in the world, this is just a tribute.

The New England Mint missed an opportunity with the coin’s design, however, by placing the Statue of Liberty on the front, and an American eagle on the back, when they could have done a whole series of designs, like maybe a John Boehner on the front, and a picture of a cave on the back.

The two takeaways are that the New England Mint knows their customer base, debuting the commercial on platinum coin enthusiast Chris Hayes’ show, and that Chris Hayes needs to start charging more for ad space.

Here’s the ad, from The New England Mint:

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.