Brother can you spare a quarter?

When I first saw the design for my home state's commemorative quarter, I was mortified. It's not bad enough that we have idiots on tv all the time wearing those pathetic cheese hats at sporting events, ensuring that we'll be called "cheeseheads" for decades to come. The coin has to propagate that image by including a big hunk of cheese. And to solidify our standing as national hicks, the quarter also prominently displays a cow and an ear of corn.

Our state license plates were similar. A decade ago they were bright yellow (cheesy, I guess) and proudly declared Wisconsin as "America's Dairyland". That was then and this is now. Wisconsin is no longer America's dairyland, having been surpassed by California years ago. But certain people in "Illinois's playground" (as we're also known) haven't gotten that memo.

And corn? Sure, we grow corn here. As well as cranberries, cherries, apples and even tobacco. But I suppose corn best exemplifies the po-dunk image the artist felt most at home with. But because I personally was appalled by the design, I quickly passed on every Wisconsin state quarter I got my paws on. And now I read this.

A mistake in the minting process for some quarters issued last year is putting coin collectors in a frenzy. Speculators are bidding up prices for the recently discovered pieces from their 25-cent face value to nearly $1,500.