Secret Message Contest Winner Before I announce the winner, there are some explanations that are in order. On a few occasions, some of you mentioned that “States” should not have been pluralized. The correct name of the Mint program is the “50 State Quarters”, but I have been used to calling it the “States Quarters” program (dropping the 50 and pluralizing States) almost since its inception. Even though it was technically wrong, the sentence still remains grammatically correct. Therefore, the sentence in the message is what it is, and it should not be corrected. Since part of this contest was for you to decide which words should or shouldn’t be capitalized, it’s possible that some of you may have been misled by my mistake. My original intent was to have “States Quarters” capitalized because it was supposed to represent the name of the program. However, since it was my mistake, I am accepting all entries whether it is capitalized or not. Also, “mint state” was another phrase that could have been interpreted either way, and since it was not my intention to mislead anyone, I will accept those entries whether it is capitalized or not. There were a total of 42 entries, and 15 of those entries correctly deciphered the message: snewman – Irish2Ice – TheNoost – conpewter – macintosh11235 – zekeguzz – zach24 – GatewayCoinGuy – dimeguy – SWThirteen – NorthKorea – silentnviolent – GuyFrost – ldhair – calumsherwood If your username is not on this list and you would like to know what mistakes you made, please send me a PM, and I will provide a copy of your entry with my notes. I don’t think I have to tell anyone, but for the record, the correct message is: “The winner of this contest will receive a pair of NGC-certified California States Quarters graded mint state sixty-seven. Congratulations, and thanks for playing.” I want to thank everyone for playing and indulging me. I’ve enjoyed conducting this contest, and it has taught me something about myself. I would never want to be a school teacher because I hate “grading papers.” Chris And the winner is………….. zach24!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Send me a PM with your address so I can send them to you.
I'm going to stand by my opinion that MS-67 should be capitalized as "Mint State Sixty-Seven". Thanks for the contest!
NO WAY I WON? Yippppeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!! I cant beleive it...!! This is great and thank you once more!!!
By the way, folks, I forgot to mention that these are business strikes that I submitted from Mint bags. They are not the satin finish from the Mint Sets. Since I have 10 pairs, I gave Zach a choice of a pair with some small die chips in some of the letters or a pair with no die chips at all. Chris
To Zach: P X D L Z Q J F V Q J M X D A !!!! And to Chris: J S Q D T A B X Z J S W P X D J W A J !!!! Happy Day! V F B Y (Must have been that un-necessary possessive apostrophe 's', drat!)
Congrats Zach, you bugger!..................so close.. And much thanks to Chris for the fun challenge!
awwww danng i didnt win $%£"%£$. Only joking i really enjoyed playing and i am very happy just to have decifered the message correctly. thanks for the most fun CT contest i have ever been a part of
in my defence it is quite late, im very very sleepy and i learned how to spell in a british public school lol