October 10, 2024 • 41 mins
Years after SwordQuest came to an abrupt and disappointing end, a gamer makes a surprising discovery in a Brooklyn thrift shop.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's nineteen ninety nine and a twenty something writer named
Clive Young is living in Brooklyn, New York. Like most
people in this tale, he's into Atari, but by now,
being into Atari is a retro thing, not a cutting
edge thing, and for Clive in particular, it's also a
budget thing.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Jen X grows up. You know, I moved out and
I was absolutely broke as anything because a big recession,
just as you know you're getting economically established in the world,
I guess is the best way to put it. So
I came across my old Atari in my parents' basement
and I was like, all right, well, you know that
doesn't cost anything.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
As you've probably guessed, that's Clive. He was an Atari
gamer from way back, and when he has to keep
a tight grip on his wallet, that dusty old console
suddenly seems interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You know, you can't afford to go out, you can't
do anything, but you can sit around the apartment and
play old Atari.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
One of the best plays, says to find old games
are thrift stores. Remember this was before games were ultra
valuable collector's items, sealed in plastic cases and selling for
thousands on eBay. Old games were mostly considered junk. So
Clive went to thrift shops browsing for old, sorry vintage
Atari titles. But then he had a reason to walk
(01:21):
into a new shop in a different part of the state.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Love.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I was living in Brooklyn at the time, but I
was dating this girl who she lived out in Long Island,
which you know is the birthplace of American suburbia, and
I would go visit her on the weekends and go
out to all the garage sales because I was if
you're living on an extraordinarily limited budget, such as I was,
and I would come across all these old Atari games
that were like twenty five cents fifty cents. I wound
(01:49):
up collecting literally hundreds of Atari games. I think before
I basically quit, I probably had the better part of
probably four hundred and fifty different games.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's how a thrifty Clive finds himself at Edley Electronics
on Long Island, which was less of a thrift store
and more of a junk store full of well loved
electronics gear. Think of it like a best buy, only
everything is cheap and probably missing a plug.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Me once every two three months, I'd stick my head
in there and that particular day, I got a call
from a friend who also knew the place, and he said, oh,
they got some great Atari stuff in there, going so yeah,
I stopped by. He had already swiped some of the
really good stuff that I never found, like the Atari
Gremlins and things like that.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Gremlins based on the movie is one of the more
rare Atari titles. It would be a good find. But
that's not what Clive sees. As he rummages through this
box of Atari, he spot something odd. It's an envelope.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
There was a letter envelope just tucked in the side
of a shoe box, and I opened it and I
found those photos.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
At first, Clive isn't sure what those photos depict, but
they turn out to be an amazing discovery, far more
interesting than an old Gremlins game. Even though seventeen years
had passed since the Sword Quest titles had first been released,
there had never been any absolute confirmation that all five
(03:17):
prizes for the contest had been made. It was possible
Atari just made them as needed, and only two were
confirmed to have been handed out. Maybe there wasn't a
sword or a philosopher Stone after all. Maybe fans were
chasing something that didn't even exist. But as Clive begins
sifting through the old photos, he realizes that he's holding
(03:40):
a part of Atari history.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I could tell it clearly has said something to do
with the actual company, because one of the photos has
a giant Atari logo up on the wall in the background.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Clive keeps flipping through the photos. There, among snapshots of
the Fireworld contest and some very retro hairstyles, is a
clear shot of the grand prize, the Sword of Ultimate
Sorcery in ety Electronics. Clive is holding real, irrefutable proof
the sword for the contest, which has never surfaced, is real.
(04:14):
But what do you do with this information? And more importantly,
how do you make sure you leave the store with
the first and maybe only image of the most sought
after prize in gaming history. After all, no one said
those photos were for sale for iHeartRadio. This is the
(04:35):
legend of sword Quest. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and
this is episode five Stay Gold. When Clive found those
photos and his accidental archaeological dig at Edley Electronics, he
(04:55):
was resurrecting memories not just of sword Quest, but Atari
as a whole. It had struggled in the intervening years,
changing hands multiple times, and was constantly in a foot
race with other video game manufacturers. Atari, like sword Quest
had imploded.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
It's also a little bit of like a Hubris thing, like,
look at this big contest that they had planned and
these big prizes that they had planned, and it never
quite comes to conclusion. So it's almost like a metaphor
for the industry and Atari itself in a way.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But finding moldy photos of a gaming contest seems kind
of unnecessary. Shouldn't someone have been taking photos or video? Well, No,
Atari had what you might call a poor institutional memory.
There wasn't much of a paper trail that was retained
for the contest when Atari changed hands in nineteen eighty four.
(05:53):
It only obfuscated things further. That's why Clive's find was
such a big deal, and it's why sword Quest remains
such an enigmatic event. No one was taking notes. Each
of the photos tell a little bit of the story.
There's Michael ride Out, one of only two winners, standing
over his prize, the chalice, which is still in its
(06:14):
ornate glass case. The curtains of the hotel's ballroom are
open behind him letting in light. There's an image that
has row after row of players, an older woman pacing
in the space between them, like a stern headmistress at
a boarding school. Another one has glimpses of other contestants,
all wearing a red Fireworld t shirt that atari probably
(06:35):
handed out like a team uniform. There's a close up
of the chalice, a stern man standing sentry next to it,
and of course the sword. It sits at an angle
on a small table, a white cloth underneath it, a
gold and jewel encrusted hilt sparkling. Even though the photo
itself isn't too sharp. Maybe some people thought the sword
(06:58):
would be cheap, looking like a movie price, but it's radiant,
it's well crafted. To a lot of people, this would
all look vaguely weird, like a Dungeons and Dragons game
gone high tech. But Clive knew a lot of the background.
Sword Quest had been a part of his childhood. Like
many gamers, he had screamed in frustration while trying to
(07:20):
win these prizes.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
When I was like thirteen, fourteen years old. I mean,
that was big selling point of the game was get
it and you'll figure it out, and you could win.
You know, this cool stuff, and of course it's all
based on clues in the comic book and this and that,
but you know, being a fourteen year old kid, the
comic book gets torn up and of course lost in
the house within like you know, a week.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Finding the photos at Edley Electronics was about as likely
as winning the contest. It was more of a junkyard
for electronics. Personal effects didn't really belong there.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
It was where electronics went to die and where hobbyist
electronics went to die. So there's you know, half of
a model airplane, there's a couple of broken turned there's
boxes of old tubes, any random random and I cannot
stress random enough, like heating coils of just somebody would
need it somehow. All this stuff would wind up in
(08:12):
the metal shelves at this store.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Clearly, someone probably a contestant, stuck the photos in a
giant box of Atari games and forgot about them. Then
they were donated or maybe sold for a song and
forgotten until Clive showed up, And it was serendipitous that
he did. Whoever ultimately picked up the photos needed to
know about sword quest, about golden chalices and swords. Otherwise
(08:39):
the photos would probably be pitched into the trash, and
to this day, atari collectors would be debating over whether
the sword had ever even been made. Clive knew this
was important, but they weren't in his possession just yet.
According to Clive, the clerks at Edley couldn't completely be
trusted not to give someone a hard time. That's because
(09:01):
the store was manned by two cranky older men who
resembled Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It was a strange place. It was about the size
of the small supermarket. It was run by these two
old guys who sat behind the counter, and they just
had duop playing all day, and all they did was bicker,
bicker with each other, bicker with their customers, the whole bit.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
The question was should Clive try to slip the photos
past them or keep them in sight. If he showed
them off, maybe they'd hesitate, ask him why he's looking
to buy someone else's personal photos and demand he hand
them over, or worse.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
It's interesting. If I bring it up to the counter,
the two cranky guys are either going to say I
can't have it, or they're going to say, oh, that's
twenty bucks.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Remember Clive's disposable income was minimal, so we opted for
a little subversion. With a deep breath, he went up
to the counter.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You know, it's some random photos that looked like they
came out some of these photo albums. There wasn't a
lot of thought put into it. I just sort of
put in a pile of stuff that I was buying
from them, like with the you know, manuals or whatever,
and they didn't even glance at it. I probably bought
the whole pile for like five bucks, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Clive went back home to Brooklyn and thought about what
he should do. He could, in theory, scan them himself
and find someplace online to post them, but he also
needed them to be vetted in some way. He thought
he knew what they were, but he wasn't sure. Remember
this was nineteen ninety nine, and it wasn't so easy
to just look up information about a retrogaming contest, so.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
It's like, all right, this has to be some sort
of officially sanctioned thing. At the time, there was a really,
at least in the very small world of Atari fans,
a big zine called twenty six hundred Connection. So I
sent the photos to them because I figured they'll know
what the heck this is, you know, I mean, I
had a pretty good idea, all right, it must have
to do with that contest.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Twenty six hundred. Connection was a fanzine or fan magazine
for Atari fans. They published the photos and the Atari
fan community was intrigued. The photos also wound up online, naturally,
and Kurt Vendel, the late Atari historian, shot Clive an email.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I remember I got an email from asking, Hey, would
you like to donate these to my museum? And the
thought was no, but.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Clive wanted to hang on to the photos.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Finding the photos was one of the best moments that
I had out of the collecting, because a lot of
the collecting, particularly at that time, I mean, the atmosphere
and the attitude may have changed, but a lot of
the collecting really came down to, hey, look what I found.
I have it. You don't, whether online or meeting people
in person or whatever. And you know, there's a certain
(11:50):
amount of okay, bragging rights, absolutely, but you know it's
maybe not the best look on anyone. And I was
as guilty of that one as anybody else.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
There was some pride in making a discovery but Clive
also thought the pictures were a kind of public record,
and seeing them in twenty six hundred Connection gave them
a kind of validity. The fine reignited conversation about the
fate of the sword quest prizes, and it killed the
theory that Atari had only had the prizes made prior
to each contest. If they made the sword the final prize,
(12:24):
then they almost certainly made all of them. Here's rus
Perry Junior, who edited twenty six hundred Connection.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
I remember back in the day some people speculated that
they weren't actually making the prizes until like right before
the contest the championship. But the problem is, we've seen
the picture of the sword. It does give you an
indication that maybe they did actually make them all at
the beginning. So the theories about them, like especially the
Philosopher's Stone the last one, probably didn't exist. Well, it
(12:54):
might have, especially with a contest. I know, again, there's
so many legal restrictions. It is possible they had to
actually have the promised prizes forehand legally before they could
announce the contest and the prizes that.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Could be true legally, Atari might not have been able
to promise prizes that weren't yet made either way, two
were awarded and accounted for the talisman and chalice, and
three were not the crown, the Philosopher's Stone, and the sword.
The sword at least was now a confirmed physical object,
(13:31):
but that still doesn't account for what happened to them
When the contest was canceled with the sword reel. It
made one prevailing theory much stronger. That theory was presented
by Kurt Vendell, who once insisted that after speaking at
length with the Tari employees, he had determined their fate.
Could Atari have simply sent the prizes back to where
(13:53):
they were made at the Franklin Mint, like returned them
for a refund. Could the Franklin Mint have come back
into possess of the prizes. Okay, it's a theory, let's
test it out. But we know you're wondering, what the
hell is the Franklin Mint.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
The American dollar is easy, but if you want the
Russian ruble or Japan's five hundred yin or say shells
ten rupees. If you want the coins that are legal
tender in over one hundred countries, you can either travel
the world or telephone the Franklin Mint for coin sets
of all nations. The Franklin Mint has done it for you,
worked with central banks and government.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's human nature to collect things. Maybe it's books, maybe
it's comics or baseball cards, atari games, rubber bands. We
hoard things, hopefully not in a way that lands us
on television for all sorts of reasons. The Franklin Mint
turned that urge into a multi million dollar business. In
(14:54):
nineteen sixty four, a man named Joseph Siegel took notice
of two events, the death of General Douglas MacArthur and
news reports of a run on silver dollars. Siegel realized
that if people were so hungry for silver coins, maybe
he could get them to buy commemorative silver medals, like say,
one depicting General MacArthur. This led to the creation of
(15:17):
the National Commemorative Society. But the National Commemorative Society needed
someone to make their commemoratives. Supposedly, Seagull tried a few options,
but wasn't happy with their quality, so he founded a
new company called General Numismatics, with a division called Franklin Mint. Eventually,
Franklin Mint became the dominant part of General Numismatics, which
(15:41):
would soon change its name to reflect that, and among
many other lines of business, was selling their own limited
runs of coins and medals to collectors. Tell people you're
only going to make ten thousand Queen Elizabeth the Second
coins and give them a deadline to order, then watch
them develop a nineteen sixties version of Fomo the fear
of missing out. This strategy worked really well early on.
(16:05):
Joseph only made the coins after he had gotten the
orders and was in no danger of getting stuck with
unsold inventory. The themes were endless, History's most Famous Women,
the history of the Catholic Church of Richard Nixon commemorative medal,
because otherwise Richard Nixon might.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Be forgotten, because people have got to know whether or
not their president's a crook.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
The Mint developed a devoted clientele, and their ideas got
more and more ambitious, maybe too ambitious. One employee, overwhelmed
with all the Mint's projects, was said to have keeled
over at his desk, dead of a heart attack. In
nineteen seventy one, the company struck a deal with astronauts
Alan Shephard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Russa on the Apollo
(16:56):
fourteen Moon mission to carry a payload of silver medals
into space. The idea was that the silver could then
be used to make commemorative coins, with the pitch being
that the material had been outside the Earth's atmosphere and
near the lunar surface. It was actually a pretty clever conceit.
The problem was that the Franklin Mint never bothered to
(17:18):
get NASA's permission. The agreement was between the Mint and
the astronauts, and while they weren't explicitly compensated, the astronauts
got to keep many of the two hundred medals they
carried into space. Some were given out to friends and family.
Of those the Mint got back, they used many of
them to make into mini coins. The stunt actually helped
(17:40):
to change NASA's protocols on bringing personal items into space.
It's not often a company changes space policy, but the
Mint managed it. However. The Mint's biggest obstacle came later
on its home planet. In nineteen seventy eight, the CBS
television news magazine show Six to Minutes devoted a segment
(18:01):
to the Franklin Mint, and, like most profiles of businesses
on sixty minutes. At the time, it wasn't glowing. The
show pointed out the fallacies of creating artificial demand by
limiting production runs and then having collectors expect those items
will increase in value. According to the report, many of
their collectible items were only worth their melt value, that is,
(18:26):
the intrinsic value of the raw material. There was no
premium placed on the fact that the coins had images
of famous historical or political figures, or that they had
been to the moon. After the report, the stock price
for the mint dropped by a dollar. The shine on
the mint seemed to dull. It was time for the
(18:46):
Franklin Mint to pivot. Joseph Siegel had left back in
nineteen seventy four and later started QVC, one of the
first home shopping channels. Striking coins was no longer the
windfall it had been, but the idea of something being
instantly and purposely rare was still viable. The mint itself
needed a makeover, and in nineteen eighty one it got it.
(19:10):
That's when Warner Communications bought the company. They were able
to because Atari's success had filled their bank account and
made it possible to acquire other businesses. No longer was
the Mint appealing exclusively to coin collectors like Warner and
even Atari itself. They were branching out into pop culture
as a whole. Over the years, they'd try their hand
(19:33):
at handsome leather bound book collections of literary classics. Star
Trek fans could buy a replica of the Starship Enterprise.
Wizard of Oz fans could procure Dorothy dolls. One tiny
ufo was accompanied by soil taken from Roswell, New Mexico. Yes,
the Mint sold dirt and did pretty well. Civil War
(19:55):
Chess sets, premium Monopoly game boards with tiny gold pieces.
There were figurines and glass sculptures, Elvis Presley offerings, and
miniature rolls voices. These were premium items made with durable,
expensive materials, and they cost money, sometimes hundreds of dollars,
and they encouraged a lot of collected all brand loyalty
(20:18):
collectors filled houses and cabinets with Franklin Mint stuff. It
was a pre Beanie baby craze. So the Mint did
another clever thing. They made it possible to purchase their
collectibles in installments. Maybe it was hard for someone to
grab a porcelain butterfly bell with twenty four carrot gold
for sixty five dollars, But what if it was in
(20:41):
three easy payments of twenty one dollars sixty seven cents
plus shipping and handling.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Of course, if money talks, here is endless conversation for
your family to treasure now and in years to come.
For a handsome hard bound cases, accompany the collection for
storage and easy reference. In charge and start your collection.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
With the strategy of offering affordable art worked. By nineteen
eighty three, just ten percent of the Mint's earnings were
from minted items. The rest of the four hundred million
dollars in sales came from mass produced art. Inside their
manufacturing facility in Waua, Pennsylvania, were hundreds of employees and
(21:22):
technicians handling and smelting all manner of materials. A vault
on the factory floor contained the most precious materials, diamonds, rubies.
Workers were checked coming and going to make sure they
weren't leaving any heavier than when they came in. While
many of the products were sold in limited runs, some
were one of a kind. In nineteen eighty one, the
(21:44):
Mint made a golden key with a value of thirty
five thousand dollars at the behest of Stanley Home Products,
which wanted to give it away during the company's fiftieth
anniversary to one of their star employees. The other major
project was, of course, sword Quest. The Franklin Mint and
Atari already had a kind of working relationship because the
(22:06):
Mint had its own publishing arm, printing its own magazine
for collectors. Warner tasked it with publishing Atari Age, the
fan publication for all Things Atari. The Mint even sold
Atari consoles to employees at its company store. Warner took
it a step further, tasking the Mint with making the
sword Quest prizes. Normally, this is where we'd interview the
(22:30):
technician or artist who made the prizes, like the blacksmith
who crafted the sword, and it's possible they're out there somewhere.
But according to Robert Murphy, a renowned sculptor and artist
who spent fourteen years at the Mint, over twenty two
hundred people worked there in the early nineteen eighties, and
the people who labored on the prizes may not have
(22:51):
had any idea what they were working on. Robert told
us it could have even been him. This is what
he said to us via email.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
Thinking back on working in the pewter department at the Mint.
I myself may have worked on one of these pieces.
We never had any idea where a particular model that
we made was heading. Each job had an individual work
number assigned to it. We would have a design sketch
or rough prototype delivered to our work area, not having
(23:23):
any idea where the final model was going to. Items
like swords often had pewter handguards that ended up being
gold plated and set with stones. We never had a
clue where the final product ended up.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
It's likely the prizes went through several departments at the
Mint with no one knowing the ultimate outcome of what
it was they were working on. It was almost like
government work, no one person knowing everything. Given the value
of the prizes, it may have been a way to
keep employees from being tempted to, you know, conquer quest
(24:00):
by simply running off with the treasures. But they were
crafts people, not just workers on some collectible's mass assembly line.
Roberts said his co workers were quote old school craftsmen,
at least a couple from prestigious European engraving and jewelry backgrounds.
All of them were miles ahead of me in terms
of model making skills unquote. That was part of the
(24:24):
Mint's approach in the nineteen sixties. They had hired the
well respected engraver Gilroy Roberts, who previously worked in the
US Mint, as their chief engraver. The Sword Quest pieces
were made with real care. We know the prizes began
to leave Pennsylvania no later than nineteen eighty three. That's
(24:45):
because at least one the talisman had to be on
display for the first contest, held in May of that
year in Sunnyvale, California. Thanks to Clive, we know the
sword exists, and thanks to winner Stephen Bell's check stub,
which he was enough to share with us, we know
the contest ended without the remaining three prizes being handed
(25:05):
out in August nineteen eighty six, and we know the
late Atari historian Kurt Vendel insisted the rest of the
prizes had been returned to the Mint. Kurt wrote about it,
and other Atari historians have said similar things. Here's Ken
van Merzbergen, an Atari fan in programmer who knew Kurt.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
He talked to a lot of people at the Franklin
Mint who had worked there back in the day. And
we believe that they were actually sent back, probably on
order from Warner to recoup the cost of this The
sorder with fifty thousand, but each individual prize was worth
twenty five k at the time.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
But Kurt never related to Ken who exactly he had
spoken with.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
No, he never shared that information with me. And unfortunately,
as you know that information is now lost.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
A lot of things relating to sword Quest turn up missing.
But if the Franklin Mint theory of reclaimed treasure is true,
then what happened next is enough to put a stake
or sword through your heart. It's a tragedy, one even
worse than paying one hundred dollars for Elvis Presley's pink
Cadillac and miniature. For years, the Franklin Mint's facilities were
(26:20):
a tremendous labor force in Pennsylvania. It employed a large
number of people who needed to assist in delivering Star
Trek collectibles to ravenous fans. But the facility also had
another purpose. Tucked inside the circular building was a museum
devoted to everything Franklin Mint. Every year, up to one
(26:41):
hundred thousand people would enter the doors of the museum.
The visitors area was a shrine to everything the Mint
had built over the years, not only in collectors' coins,
but their limited run items, thousands and thousands of purposeful
art pieces, including expensive Faberge eggs and tiny Harley Das Davidson's.
(27:01):
If the prizes were returned to the Mint, it's possible
they could have wound up here. Inside are raiders of
the lost Ark style tribute to all things Franklin Mint.
A gleaming crown, a towering stone, a sharp sword encased
behind glass, all monuments to the Mint's ingenuity and craftsmanship,
nestled near frank Sinatra and Scarlett O'Harra dolls, or a
(27:24):
John Wayne commemorative dinner plate. Maybe a tiny placard advising
visitors of their significance in Franklin Mint history. Here'sit's the
crown of video gaming Royalty. No player ever deemed worthy
enough to wear it. Here hangs on the sword, no
sword quester ever strong enough to wield it. But the
(27:44):
Franklin Mint Museum was no mere museum. In fitting with
the company's overall mission of commercial art, it was also
a gift shop. Most everything in the museum was for sale.
If the sword quest piece is wound up here. It's
highly possible a strident Franklin Mint die hard collector would
have been eager to possess a one of a kind piece.
(28:07):
Never Mind it was made for an Atari contest. It
would have been the most limited of additions, an addition
of one. Yes, the items would have been pricey, but
Mint fans weren't all installment buyers. One replica of an
Egyptian necklace went for ninety five hundred dollars. A diamond
encrusted Star of the North wristwatch went for ten thousand dollars.
(28:30):
There was a strong demand for swords too. The Mint
struck blades inspired by Charlemagne. The Japanese Samurai Camelot, a
bejeweled sword ready for wall display, would not have been
out of place. That's one possibility. If the Mint took
the prizes back, someone could also have made the decision
to route them elsewhere to one of the Mint's growing
(28:52):
numbers of retail shops around the country. These boutiques were
full of Franklin Mint merchandise. Someone somewhere could have packed
up the items in newspaper and nailed them shut inside
a wooden crate, shuttled them to a Franklin mint shop
and lost any trace of their existence. There's one more
potential outcome of returning the prizes to the Mint, and
(29:14):
it's probably the most frustrating of them all. When Atari
made the decision to cancel sword Quest in nineteen eighty six,
they still had a legal obligation to offer a settlement
to the players who had earned a spot in the
finals and a chance to play for the sword. So
Stephen Bell and Michael Ridout, the two finalists, received a
check for fifteen thousand dollars each. The other players due
(29:38):
to play in a water world contest the third game
in the series, got two thousand or twenty five hundred
dollars each. So in a world where Atari was now
strapped for cash and conserving every dollar, where would that
fifty thousand dollars come from? Do you remember what happened
to those Astronaut coins. There's a version of this story
(29:59):
where a tar sorry, desperate to end this contest, winds
up selling the prizes back to the Franklin Mint, which
pays them money for the raw materials, money that then
goes to paying the finalists. The Mint, which has no
need for unique guitari prize items, considers it money well
spent for silver, gold and jewels. The silver and gold
(30:20):
is melted down, repurposed into any number of other collectibles.
Someone's letter opener made from the reclaimed silver of the sword,
and with that the Sword Quest prizes quite literally vanish
from existence. Here's Ken van Merzbergen again.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Well, I think is that all the stones are probably
removed and repurposed, and the gold and silver were melted
down to turn into other product because they were still
owned by the Franklin Mint at that time, and I
think they belong to Franklin Mint.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
It's a sobering thought, like a copy of Action Comics
number one being fed into a paper shredder. And it's
certainly possible. It makes financial sense for a tarorry, but
there are some important details to consider. Martin Goldberg, an
Atari historian who worked with the lank Kurt Vendel, later
said Warner executive Manny Gerard told him the prize as
(31:12):
went back to the Mint, but when we recently spoke
with Manny, he couldn't corroborate that. Here's Manny.
Speaker 7 (31:19):
I gotta tell you, I don't even remember the name.
But then again, I don't remember a name very much,
any boy, But I have no recollection of any of
that I don't remember, so I certainly don't remember the prize.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
It's a test of anyone's memory, and we're not saying
his lack of recall proves anything, only that we asked
someone who might have known where the prizes went or
if they were returned to the Mint, and he just
doesn't know. Keep in mind too, that Manny left Warner
in nineteen eighty four, two years before the contest was
cut short. The story has other holes in it. Back
(31:57):
in the eighties, Atari wasn't the only ailing business in
the Warner portfolio. The Franklin Mint was another, and so
in nineteen eighty five, Warner sold off a majority stake
in the Mint to Stuart and Linda Resnik, a married
couple who happened to be fabulously wealthy. Their company, American
Protection Industries, had made a fortune in home security, and
(32:21):
Linda wanted to get into the collectibles game. The Mint
was theirs for about one hundred and sixty million dollars,
probably not payable in three easy installments. That means Atari
was far removed from having any kind of inside track
with the Franklin Mint. Atari had been sold off in
nineteen eighty four, the Mint in nineteen eighty five. The
(32:43):
contest was officially canceled in nineteen eighty six. The two
were no longer corporate partners and any dealings or relationships
they had were likely dissolved. So why would Atari approach
the Mint and why would the Mint offer to lend
a hand without any corporate connection. We were able to
contact Stuart Resnik, who was in charge of the Mint
during those years, and he has no memory whatsoever of
(33:07):
Atari sending the Mint a crate full of video game
prizes to be sold off for fifty thousand dollars or more.
That's not remotely definitive proof it didn't happen, But on
the other hand, it does seem like the kind of
thing you might remember. It's hard to believe that Atari
would willingly ship off the prizes back to Pennsylvania, particularly
(33:28):
when it took the company two years to reach what
they felt was a satisfactory resolution to the contest. If
Stephen Bell and Michael Rideout had refused, it's possible they
would have had to see the contest through, and if
they did, they couldn't have given them a bunch of
melted silver and gold in a puddle. The prizes would
have needed to survive at least until the summer of
(33:50):
nineteen eighty six, well passed the mint's new ownership and
Manny's tenure. There's also Robert Murphy, the sculptor we mentioned
earlier time at the Mint. He says he never heard
of any kind of repurposing program for materials, but he
did add that sometimes unwanted or unused items were sold
(34:10):
to employees at a discounted price. There were trailer sales
in the Mint's parking lot where Robert says workers could
buy things for pennies on the dollar. Of course, Robert
can't say for certain he saw the sword Quest prizes
during one of these sales, but he does remember what
he called some camelot type items, ornate products from Arthurian legend,
(34:32):
like swords and chalices, things that could have easily been
the sword Quest prizes on display at the museum, sold
to a visitor or employee, sent to a retail store,
or just simply destroyed all possible fates if the prizes
found their way back to the Franklin Mint. That seemed
(34:52):
dire and final The Mint's plant is gone now, and
so is the museum, raised and paved over in twenty nineteen,
though it's changed hands several times since the Resinus bought
it in nineteen eighty five. The Mint itself still exists,
pedaling coins, toy cars, and patriotic coffee mugs online, but
(35:14):
there's nowhere it could hang a sword if it still
had one. There's one more detail worth mentioning. Of the
three remaining prizes, one of them was the Philosopher's Stone.
While it did have a gold display case, it was
made of white jade, and you can't melt down jade.
(35:34):
For a long time, it's been accepted that Clive Young
discovered the only known photo of the sword. As it
turns out, all these years later, someone did take a
glamour shot of the sword a second photo. In reporting
this story, we found several newspapers from October nineteen eighty
two that had a picture in it. An unnamed technician
(35:58):
from the Franklin Mint is pictured, hoped in a white,
clean suit as though he were working in a laboratory.
He's cradling the sword of Ultimate Sorcery, It's hilt visible.
The caption says it was struck at the mint for atari,
along with the chalice, crown and talisman. It was a
photo distributed for promotional use, Lost and forgotten. The man
(36:20):
is looking at something that is soon to disappear, but
something that absolutely positively existed. This photo, like the ones
Clive found, is a little like a tiny fossilized bone
from a creature thought to be extinct. The images of
the prizes are incredibly rare. Most exist only as illustrations
(36:42):
in gaming magazines. Without them, it's likely no one would
be entirely convinced the prizes had ever been real at all.
Maybe that's what the photographer at the contest wanted, proof
not just of the prizes, but of their experience.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Here's Clive, a good enough player that you wound up
getting to be in this contest. When you have someone
take a photo of yourself, or even just take a
photo yourself like next to the story, it as opposed
to just the sword by itself or something. So it's
sort of an interesting thing of what's not in the photos,
which kind of makes me think maybe, like you know,
(37:18):
there were a couple of more personal photos that maybe
in somebody's photo albums somewhere in Levittown. But these were
the ones that somebody whoever it was, just sort of
tucked into an envelope and kept with their stuff. The
photos kind of look almost like photos that you take
is proof if you were a kid back then, you know,
like picks or it didn't happen. Yeah, this is really
(37:39):
what it looks like. Yes, that's the guy who wanted
Yes there really was a chalice. My extrapolating with that
actually knowing what I'm talking about, These photos strike me
as these were the photos you take to school to
say this is what I did on my summer vacation.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Today, the contest would be all over social media. Someone
would be live streaming it. But then these photos might
be the only tangible remnants of that experience. We've managed
to speak to a few of the contestants, but so
many more are lost to time, their stories, their ambitions,
their experiences.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So there is certainly a huge base of folks who
know about it, but beyond it, it's sort of like,
all right, well there are people who managed to do this,
but you don't know who they are. And you know,
today something like this would be all over the place.
You could look it up on the Internet. If there
were forty fifty sixty people who were in the Fireworld
contest and it happened today, you'd know everybody's names. Everybody
(38:37):
would have it up on their social media. Hey I
did this way. It is a mystery, And so that mysteriousness,
even if it's not an intentional mysteriousness, just purely because
so much of this is lost in the mists of time,
that gives it a certain are of something special. It
was also the first time, least I'm aware that something
this big was attempted by one of the video game companies.
(38:59):
And it also because it happened just as the first
push of video games kind of peaked, the entire video
game industry sort of collapsed in the early eighties.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
For Clive, the photos are perfectly emblematic of sword Quest.
A lot of threads to tug on.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Oh sure, it's a story with so many loose ends. Inevitably,
just because that last game never came out.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
One loose end we can tie up right now. Remember
that Clive was in Long Island to see his girlfriend.
That's the whole reason he found the photos. She's no
longer his girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
This girl who became my wife for the last on
teen decades.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Spoken like a true romantic. Clive's sword Quest had a
happy ending, but for the rest of the Atari faithful,
his discovery prompted more questions, but they wouldn't have to
wait long for an answer. Just two years after the
photos were found, someone else delivered an even bigger bombshell.
And that's someone was Ken Van Mersberkin.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
And then all of a sudden, this prototype in quotes
my air Quotes shows up on Neebay sword Quest Airworld
like No, can't.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Be Airworld, the lost sword Quest game That's next time
on sword Quest.
Speaker 6 (40:25):
The Legend of sword Quest is a production of iHeart
Podcasts and School of Humans.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
This episode was written by Jake Rosson and hosted by
Jamie Loftus producers are Miranda Hawkins and Josh Fisher. Executive
producers are Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, and
Jason English.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
Our show editor is Mary Doo.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Audio engineering by Graham Gibson, Research and fact checking by
Austin Thompson and Jake Rosson. Original score by Jesse Niswanger.
This episode was sound designed by Josh Fisher, mixing and mastering.
Speaker 7 (40:58):
By Jake Cook show logan by Lucy Quintonia. The voice
in this episode was provided by Jason English.
It's nineteen ninety nine and a twenty something writer named
Clive Young is living in Brooklyn, New York. Like most
people in this tale, he's into Atari, but by now,
being into Atari is a retro thing, not a cutting
edge thing, and for Clive in particular, it's also a
budget thing.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Jen X grows up. You know, I moved out and
I was absolutely broke as anything because a big recession,
just as you know you're getting economically established in the world,
I guess is the best way to put it. So
I came across my old Atari in my parents' basement
and I was like, all right, well, you know that
doesn't cost anything.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
As you've probably guessed, that's Clive. He was an Atari
gamer from way back, and when he has to keep
a tight grip on his wallet, that dusty old console
suddenly seems interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You know, you can't afford to go out, you can't
do anything, but you can sit around the apartment and
play old Atari.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
One of the best plays, says to find old games
are thrift stores. Remember this was before games were ultra
valuable collector's items, sealed in plastic cases and selling for
thousands on eBay. Old games were mostly considered junk. So
Clive went to thrift shops browsing for old, sorry vintage
Atari titles. But then he had a reason to walk
(01:21):
into a new shop in a different part of the state.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Love.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I was living in Brooklyn at the time, but I
was dating this girl who she lived out in Long Island,
which you know is the birthplace of American suburbia, and
I would go visit her on the weekends and go
out to all the garage sales because I was if
you're living on an extraordinarily limited budget, such as I was,
and I would come across all these old Atari games
that were like twenty five cents fifty cents. I wound
(01:49):
up collecting literally hundreds of Atari games. I think before
I basically quit, I probably had the better part of
probably four hundred and fifty different games.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's how a thrifty Clive finds himself at Edley Electronics
on Long Island, which was less of a thrift store
and more of a junk store full of well loved
electronics gear. Think of it like a best buy, only
everything is cheap and probably missing a plug.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Me once every two three months, I'd stick my head
in there and that particular day, I got a call
from a friend who also knew the place, and he said, oh,
they got some great Atari stuff in there, going so yeah,
I stopped by. He had already swiped some of the
really good stuff that I never found, like the Atari
Gremlins and things like that.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Gremlins based on the movie is one of the more
rare Atari titles. It would be a good find. But
that's not what Clive sees. As he rummages through this
box of Atari, he spot something odd. It's an envelope.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
There was a letter envelope just tucked in the side
of a shoe box, and I opened it and I
found those photos.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
At first, Clive isn't sure what those photos depict, but
they turn out to be an amazing discovery, far more
interesting than an old Gremlins game. Even though seventeen years
had passed since the Sword Quest titles had first been released,
there had never been any absolute confirmation that all five
(03:17):
prizes for the contest had been made. It was possible
Atari just made them as needed, and only two were
confirmed to have been handed out. Maybe there wasn't a
sword or a philosopher Stone after all. Maybe fans were
chasing something that didn't even exist. But as Clive begins
sifting through the old photos, he realizes that he's holding
(03:40):
a part of Atari history.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I could tell it clearly has said something to do
with the actual company, because one of the photos has
a giant Atari logo up on the wall in the background.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Clive keeps flipping through the photos. There, among snapshots of
the Fireworld contest and some very retro hairstyles, is a
clear shot of the grand prize, the Sword of Ultimate
Sorcery in ety Electronics. Clive is holding real, irrefutable proof
the sword for the contest, which has never surfaced, is real.
(04:14):
But what do you do with this information? And more importantly,
how do you make sure you leave the store with
the first and maybe only image of the most sought
after prize in gaming history. After all, no one said
those photos were for sale for iHeartRadio. This is the
(04:35):
legend of sword Quest. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and
this is episode five Stay Gold. When Clive found those
photos and his accidental archaeological dig at Edley Electronics, he
(04:55):
was resurrecting memories not just of sword Quest, but Atari
as a whole. It had struggled in the intervening years,
changing hands multiple times, and was constantly in a foot
race with other video game manufacturers. Atari, like sword Quest
had imploded.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
It's also a little bit of like a Hubris thing, like,
look at this big contest that they had planned and
these big prizes that they had planned, and it never
quite comes to conclusion. So it's almost like a metaphor
for the industry and Atari itself in a way.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But finding moldy photos of a gaming contest seems kind
of unnecessary. Shouldn't someone have been taking photos or video? Well, No,
Atari had what you might call a poor institutional memory.
There wasn't much of a paper trail that was retained
for the contest when Atari changed hands in nineteen eighty four.
(05:53):
It only obfuscated things further. That's why Clive's find was
such a big deal, and it's why sword Quest remains
such an enigmatic event. No one was taking notes. Each
of the photos tell a little bit of the story.
There's Michael ride Out, one of only two winners, standing
over his prize, the chalice, which is still in its
(06:14):
ornate glass case. The curtains of the hotel's ballroom are
open behind him letting in light. There's an image that
has row after row of players, an older woman pacing
in the space between them, like a stern headmistress at
a boarding school. Another one has glimpses of other contestants,
all wearing a red Fireworld t shirt that atari probably
(06:35):
handed out like a team uniform. There's a close up
of the chalice, a stern man standing sentry next to it,
and of course the sword. It sits at an angle
on a small table, a white cloth underneath it, a
gold and jewel encrusted hilt sparkling. Even though the photo
itself isn't too sharp. Maybe some people thought the sword
(06:58):
would be cheap, looking like a movie price, but it's radiant,
it's well crafted. To a lot of people, this would
all look vaguely weird, like a Dungeons and Dragons game
gone high tech. But Clive knew a lot of the background.
Sword Quest had been a part of his childhood. Like
many gamers, he had screamed in frustration while trying to
(07:20):
win these prizes.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
When I was like thirteen, fourteen years old. I mean,
that was big selling point of the game was get
it and you'll figure it out, and you could win.
You know, this cool stuff, and of course it's all
based on clues in the comic book and this and that,
but you know, being a fourteen year old kid, the
comic book gets torn up and of course lost in
the house within like you know, a week.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Finding the photos at Edley Electronics was about as likely
as winning the contest. It was more of a junkyard
for electronics. Personal effects didn't really belong there.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
It was where electronics went to die and where hobbyist
electronics went to die. So there's you know, half of
a model airplane, there's a couple of broken turned there's
boxes of old tubes, any random random and I cannot
stress random enough, like heating coils of just somebody would
need it somehow. All this stuff would wind up in
(08:12):
the metal shelves at this store.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Clearly, someone probably a contestant, stuck the photos in a
giant box of Atari games and forgot about them. Then
they were donated or maybe sold for a song and
forgotten until Clive showed up, And it was serendipitous that
he did. Whoever ultimately picked up the photos needed to
know about sword quest, about golden chalices and swords. Otherwise
(08:39):
the photos would probably be pitched into the trash, and
to this day, atari collectors would be debating over whether
the sword had ever even been made. Clive knew this
was important, but they weren't in his possession just yet.
According to Clive, the clerks at Edley couldn't completely be
trusted not to give someone a hard time. That's because
(09:01):
the store was manned by two cranky older men who
resembled Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It was a strange place. It was about the size
of the small supermarket. It was run by these two
old guys who sat behind the counter, and they just
had duop playing all day, and all they did was bicker,
bicker with each other, bicker with their customers, the whole bit.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
The question was should Clive try to slip the photos
past them or keep them in sight. If he showed
them off, maybe they'd hesitate, ask him why he's looking
to buy someone else's personal photos and demand he hand
them over, or worse.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
It's interesting. If I bring it up to the counter,
the two cranky guys are either going to say I
can't have it, or they're going to say, oh, that's
twenty bucks.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Remember Clive's disposable income was minimal, so we opted for
a little subversion. With a deep breath, he went up
to the counter.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You know, it's some random photos that looked like they
came out some of these photo albums. There wasn't a
lot of thought put into it. I just sort of
put in a pile of stuff that I was buying
from them, like with the you know, manuals or whatever,
and they didn't even glance at it. I probably bought
the whole pile for like five bucks, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Clive went back home to Brooklyn and thought about what
he should do. He could, in theory, scan them himself
and find someplace online to post them, but he also
needed them to be vetted in some way. He thought
he knew what they were, but he wasn't sure. Remember
this was nineteen ninety nine, and it wasn't so easy
to just look up information about a retrogaming contest, so.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
It's like, all right, this has to be some sort
of officially sanctioned thing. At the time, there was a really,
at least in the very small world of Atari fans,
a big zine called twenty six hundred Connection. So I
sent the photos to them because I figured they'll know
what the heck this is, you know, I mean, I
had a pretty good idea, all right, it must have
to do with that contest.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Twenty six hundred. Connection was a fanzine or fan magazine
for Atari fans. They published the photos and the Atari
fan community was intrigued. The photos also wound up online, naturally,
and Kurt Vendel, the late Atari historian, shot Clive an email.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I remember I got an email from asking, Hey, would
you like to donate these to my museum? And the
thought was no, but.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Clive wanted to hang on to the photos.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Finding the photos was one of the best moments that
I had out of the collecting, because a lot of
the collecting, particularly at that time, I mean, the atmosphere
and the attitude may have changed, but a lot of
the collecting really came down to, hey, look what I found.
I have it. You don't, whether online or meeting people
in person or whatever. And you know, there's a certain
(11:50):
amount of okay, bragging rights, absolutely, but you know it's
maybe not the best look on anyone. And I was
as guilty of that one as anybody else.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
There was some pride in making a discovery but Clive
also thought the pictures were a kind of public record,
and seeing them in twenty six hundred Connection gave them
a kind of validity. The fine reignited conversation about the
fate of the sword quest prizes, and it killed the
theory that Atari had only had the prizes made prior
to each contest. If they made the sword the final prize,
(12:24):
then they almost certainly made all of them. Here's rus
Perry Junior, who edited twenty six hundred Connection.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
I remember back in the day some people speculated that
they weren't actually making the prizes until like right before
the contest the championship. But the problem is, we've seen
the picture of the sword. It does give you an
indication that maybe they did actually make them all at
the beginning. So the theories about them, like especially the
Philosopher's Stone the last one, probably didn't exist. Well, it
(12:54):
might have, especially with a contest. I know, again, there's
so many legal restrictions. It is possible they had to
actually have the promised prizes forehand legally before they could
announce the contest and the prizes that.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Could be true legally, Atari might not have been able
to promise prizes that weren't yet made either way, two
were awarded and accounted for the talisman and chalice, and
three were not the crown, the Philosopher's Stone, and the sword.
The sword at least was now a confirmed physical object,
(13:31):
but that still doesn't account for what happened to them
When the contest was canceled with the sword reel. It
made one prevailing theory much stronger. That theory was presented
by Kurt Vendell, who once insisted that after speaking at
length with the Tari employees, he had determined their fate.
Could Atari have simply sent the prizes back to where
(13:53):
they were made at the Franklin Mint, like returned them
for a refund. Could the Franklin Mint have come back
into possess of the prizes. Okay, it's a theory, let's
test it out. But we know you're wondering, what the
hell is the Franklin Mint.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
The American dollar is easy, but if you want the
Russian ruble or Japan's five hundred yin or say shells
ten rupees. If you want the coins that are legal
tender in over one hundred countries, you can either travel
the world or telephone the Franklin Mint for coin sets
of all nations. The Franklin Mint has done it for you,
worked with central banks and government.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's human nature to collect things. Maybe it's books, maybe
it's comics or baseball cards, atari games, rubber bands. We
hoard things, hopefully not in a way that lands us
on television for all sorts of reasons. The Franklin Mint
turned that urge into a multi million dollar business. In
(14:54):
nineteen sixty four, a man named Joseph Siegel took notice
of two events, the death of General Douglas MacArthur and
news reports of a run on silver dollars. Siegel realized
that if people were so hungry for silver coins, maybe
he could get them to buy commemorative silver medals, like say,
one depicting General MacArthur. This led to the creation of
(15:17):
the National Commemorative Society. But the National Commemorative Society needed
someone to make their commemoratives. Supposedly, Seagull tried a few options,
but wasn't happy with their quality, so he founded a
new company called General Numismatics, with a division called Franklin Mint. Eventually,
Franklin Mint became the dominant part of General Numismatics, which
(15:41):
would soon change its name to reflect that, and among
many other lines of business, was selling their own limited
runs of coins and medals to collectors. Tell people you're
only going to make ten thousand Queen Elizabeth the Second
coins and give them a deadline to order, then watch
them develop a nineteen sixties version of Fomo the fear
of missing out. This strategy worked really well early on.
(16:05):
Joseph only made the coins after he had gotten the
orders and was in no danger of getting stuck with
unsold inventory. The themes were endless, History's most Famous Women,
the history of the Catholic Church of Richard Nixon commemorative medal,
because otherwise Richard Nixon might.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Be forgotten, because people have got to know whether or
not their president's a crook.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
The Mint developed a devoted clientele, and their ideas got
more and more ambitious, maybe too ambitious. One employee, overwhelmed
with all the Mint's projects, was said to have keeled
over at his desk, dead of a heart attack. In
nineteen seventy one, the company struck a deal with astronauts
Alan Shephard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Russa on the Apollo
(16:56):
fourteen Moon mission to carry a payload of silver medals
into space. The idea was that the silver could then
be used to make commemorative coins, with the pitch being
that the material had been outside the Earth's atmosphere and
near the lunar surface. It was actually a pretty clever conceit.
The problem was that the Franklin Mint never bothered to
(17:18):
get NASA's permission. The agreement was between the Mint and
the astronauts, and while they weren't explicitly compensated, the astronauts
got to keep many of the two hundred medals they
carried into space. Some were given out to friends and family.
Of those the Mint got back, they used many of
them to make into mini coins. The stunt actually helped
(17:40):
to change NASA's protocols on bringing personal items into space.
It's not often a company changes space policy, but the
Mint managed it. However. The Mint's biggest obstacle came later
on its home planet. In nineteen seventy eight, the CBS
television news magazine show Six to Minutes devoted a segment
(18:01):
to the Franklin Mint, and, like most profiles of businesses
on sixty minutes. At the time, it wasn't glowing. The
show pointed out the fallacies of creating artificial demand by
limiting production runs and then having collectors expect those items
will increase in value. According to the report, many of
their collectible items were only worth their melt value, that is,
(18:26):
the intrinsic value of the raw material. There was no
premium placed on the fact that the coins had images
of famous historical or political figures, or that they had
been to the moon. After the report, the stock price
for the mint dropped by a dollar. The shine on
the mint seemed to dull. It was time for the
(18:46):
Franklin Mint to pivot. Joseph Siegel had left back in
nineteen seventy four and later started QVC, one of the
first home shopping channels. Striking coins was no longer the
windfall it had been, but the idea of something being
instantly and purposely rare was still viable. The mint itself
needed a makeover, and in nineteen eighty one it got it.
(19:10):
That's when Warner Communications bought the company. They were able
to because Atari's success had filled their bank account and
made it possible to acquire other businesses. No longer was
the Mint appealing exclusively to coin collectors like Warner and
even Atari itself. They were branching out into pop culture
as a whole. Over the years, they'd try their hand
(19:33):
at handsome leather bound book collections of literary classics. Star
Trek fans could buy a replica of the Starship Enterprise.
Wizard of Oz fans could procure Dorothy dolls. One tiny
ufo was accompanied by soil taken from Roswell, New Mexico. Yes,
the Mint sold dirt and did pretty well. Civil War
(19:55):
Chess sets, premium Monopoly game boards with tiny gold pieces.
There were figurines and glass sculptures, Elvis Presley offerings, and
miniature rolls voices. These were premium items made with durable,
expensive materials, and they cost money, sometimes hundreds of dollars,
and they encouraged a lot of collected all brand loyalty
(20:18):
collectors filled houses and cabinets with Franklin Mint stuff. It
was a pre Beanie baby craze. So the Mint did
another clever thing. They made it possible to purchase their
collectibles in installments. Maybe it was hard for someone to
grab a porcelain butterfly bell with twenty four carrot gold
for sixty five dollars, But what if it was in
(20:41):
three easy payments of twenty one dollars sixty seven cents
plus shipping and handling.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Of course, if money talks, here is endless conversation for
your family to treasure now and in years to come.
For a handsome hard bound cases, accompany the collection for
storage and easy reference. In charge and start your collection.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
With the strategy of offering affordable art worked. By nineteen
eighty three, just ten percent of the Mint's earnings were
from minted items. The rest of the four hundred million
dollars in sales came from mass produced art. Inside their
manufacturing facility in Waua, Pennsylvania, were hundreds of employees and
(21:22):
technicians handling and smelting all manner of materials. A vault
on the factory floor contained the most precious materials, diamonds, rubies.
Workers were checked coming and going to make sure they
weren't leaving any heavier than when they came in. While
many of the products were sold in limited runs, some
were one of a kind. In nineteen eighty one, the
(21:44):
Mint made a golden key with a value of thirty
five thousand dollars at the behest of Stanley Home Products,
which wanted to give it away during the company's fiftieth
anniversary to one of their star employees. The other major
project was, of course, sword Quest. The Franklin Mint and
Atari already had a kind of working relationship because the
(22:06):
Mint had its own publishing arm, printing its own magazine
for collectors. Warner tasked it with publishing Atari Age, the
fan publication for all Things Atari. The Mint even sold
Atari consoles to employees at its company store. Warner took
it a step further, tasking the Mint with making the
sword Quest prizes. Normally, this is where we'd interview the
(22:30):
technician or artist who made the prizes, like the blacksmith
who crafted the sword, and it's possible they're out there somewhere.
But according to Robert Murphy, a renowned sculptor and artist
who spent fourteen years at the Mint, over twenty two
hundred people worked there in the early nineteen eighties, and
the people who labored on the prizes may not have
(22:51):
had any idea what they were working on. Robert told
us it could have even been him. This is what
he said to us via email.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
Thinking back on working in the pewter department at the Mint.
I myself may have worked on one of these pieces.
We never had any idea where a particular model that
we made was heading. Each job had an individual work
number assigned to it. We would have a design sketch
or rough prototype delivered to our work area, not having
(23:23):
any idea where the final model was going to. Items
like swords often had pewter handguards that ended up being
gold plated and set with stones. We never had a
clue where the final product ended up.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
It's likely the prizes went through several departments at the
Mint with no one knowing the ultimate outcome of what
it was they were working on. It was almost like
government work, no one person knowing everything. Given the value
of the prizes, it may have been a way to
keep employees from being tempted to, you know, conquer quest
(24:00):
by simply running off with the treasures. But they were
crafts people, not just workers on some collectible's mass assembly line.
Roberts said his co workers were quote old school craftsmen,
at least a couple from prestigious European engraving and jewelry backgrounds.
All of them were miles ahead of me in terms
of model making skills unquote. That was part of the
(24:24):
Mint's approach in the nineteen sixties. They had hired the
well respected engraver Gilroy Roberts, who previously worked in the
US Mint, as their chief engraver. The Sword Quest pieces
were made with real care. We know the prizes began
to leave Pennsylvania no later than nineteen eighty three. That's
(24:45):
because at least one the talisman had to be on
display for the first contest, held in May of that
year in Sunnyvale, California. Thanks to Clive, we know the
sword exists, and thanks to winner Stephen Bell's check stub,
which he was enough to share with us, we know
the contest ended without the remaining three prizes being handed
(25:05):
out in August nineteen eighty six, and we know the
late Atari historian Kurt Vendel insisted the rest of the
prizes had been returned to the Mint. Kurt wrote about it,
and other Atari historians have said similar things. Here's Ken
van Merzbergen, an Atari fan in programmer who knew Kurt.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
He talked to a lot of people at the Franklin
Mint who had worked there back in the day. And
we believe that they were actually sent back, probably on
order from Warner to recoup the cost of this The
sorder with fifty thousand, but each individual prize was worth
twenty five k at the time.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
But Kurt never related to Ken who exactly he had
spoken with.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
No, he never shared that information with me. And unfortunately,
as you know that information is now lost.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
A lot of things relating to sword Quest turn up missing.
But if the Franklin Mint theory of reclaimed treasure is true,
then what happened next is enough to put a stake
or sword through your heart. It's a tragedy, one even
worse than paying one hundred dollars for Elvis Presley's pink
Cadillac and miniature. For years, the Franklin Mint's facilities were
(26:20):
a tremendous labor force in Pennsylvania. It employed a large
number of people who needed to assist in delivering Star
Trek collectibles to ravenous fans. But the facility also had
another purpose. Tucked inside the circular building was a museum
devoted to everything Franklin Mint. Every year, up to one
(26:41):
hundred thousand people would enter the doors of the museum.
The visitors area was a shrine to everything the Mint
had built over the years, not only in collectors' coins,
but their limited run items, thousands and thousands of purposeful
art pieces, including expensive Faberge eggs and tiny Harley Das Davidson's.
(27:01):
If the prizes were returned to the Mint, it's possible
they could have wound up here. Inside are raiders of
the lost Ark style tribute to all things Franklin Mint.
A gleaming crown, a towering stone, a sharp sword encased
behind glass, all monuments to the Mint's ingenuity and craftsmanship,
nestled near frank Sinatra and Scarlett O'Harra dolls, or a
(27:24):
John Wayne commemorative dinner plate. Maybe a tiny placard advising
visitors of their significance in Franklin Mint history. Here'sit's the
crown of video gaming Royalty. No player ever deemed worthy
enough to wear it. Here hangs on the sword, no
sword quester ever strong enough to wield it. But the
(27:44):
Franklin Mint Museum was no mere museum. In fitting with
the company's overall mission of commercial art, it was also
a gift shop. Most everything in the museum was for sale.
If the sword quest piece is wound up here. It's
highly possible a strident Franklin Mint die hard collector would
have been eager to possess a one of a kind piece.
(28:07):
Never Mind it was made for an Atari contest. It
would have been the most limited of additions, an addition
of one. Yes, the items would have been pricey, but
Mint fans weren't all installment buyers. One replica of an
Egyptian necklace went for ninety five hundred dollars. A diamond
encrusted Star of the North wristwatch went for ten thousand dollars.
(28:30):
There was a strong demand for swords too. The Mint
struck blades inspired by Charlemagne. The Japanese Samurai Camelot, a
bejeweled sword ready for wall display, would not have been
out of place. That's one possibility. If the Mint took
the prizes back, someone could also have made the decision
to route them elsewhere to one of the Mint's growing
(28:52):
numbers of retail shops around the country. These boutiques were
full of Franklin Mint merchandise. Someone somewhere could have packed
up the items in newspaper and nailed them shut inside
a wooden crate, shuttled them to a Franklin mint shop
and lost any trace of their existence. There's one more
potential outcome of returning the prizes to the Mint, and
(29:14):
it's probably the most frustrating of them all. When Atari
made the decision to cancel sword Quest in nineteen eighty six,
they still had a legal obligation to offer a settlement
to the players who had earned a spot in the
finals and a chance to play for the sword. So
Stephen Bell and Michael Ridout, the two finalists, received a
check for fifteen thousand dollars each. The other players due
(29:38):
to play in a water world contest the third game
in the series, got two thousand or twenty five hundred
dollars each. So in a world where Atari was now
strapped for cash and conserving every dollar, where would that
fifty thousand dollars come from? Do you remember what happened
to those Astronaut coins. There's a version of this story
(29:59):
where a tar sorry, desperate to end this contest, winds
up selling the prizes back to the Franklin Mint, which
pays them money for the raw materials, money that then
goes to paying the finalists. The Mint, which has no
need for unique guitari prize items, considers it money well
spent for silver, gold and jewels. The silver and gold
(30:20):
is melted down, repurposed into any number of other collectibles.
Someone's letter opener made from the reclaimed silver of the sword,
and with that the Sword Quest prizes quite literally vanish
from existence. Here's Ken van Merzbergen again.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Well, I think is that all the stones are probably
removed and repurposed, and the gold and silver were melted
down to turn into other product because they were still
owned by the Franklin Mint at that time, and I
think they belong to Franklin Mint.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
It's a sobering thought, like a copy of Action Comics
number one being fed into a paper shredder. And it's
certainly possible. It makes financial sense for a tarorry, but
there are some important details to consider. Martin Goldberg, an
Atari historian who worked with the lank Kurt Vendel, later
said Warner executive Manny Gerard told him the prize as
(31:12):
went back to the Mint, but when we recently spoke
with Manny, he couldn't corroborate that. Here's Manny.
Speaker 7 (31:19):
I gotta tell you, I don't even remember the name.
But then again, I don't remember a name very much,
any boy, But I have no recollection of any of
that I don't remember, so I certainly don't remember the prize.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
It's a test of anyone's memory, and we're not saying
his lack of recall proves anything, only that we asked
someone who might have known where the prizes went or
if they were returned to the Mint, and he just
doesn't know. Keep in mind too, that Manny left Warner
in nineteen eighty four, two years before the contest was
cut short. The story has other holes in it. Back
(31:57):
in the eighties, Atari wasn't the only ailing business in
the Warner portfolio. The Franklin Mint was another, and so
in nineteen eighty five, Warner sold off a majority stake
in the Mint to Stuart and Linda Resnik, a married
couple who happened to be fabulously wealthy. Their company, American
Protection Industries, had made a fortune in home security, and
(32:21):
Linda wanted to get into the collectibles game. The Mint
was theirs for about one hundred and sixty million dollars,
probably not payable in three easy installments. That means Atari
was far removed from having any kind of inside track
with the Franklin Mint. Atari had been sold off in
nineteen eighty four, the Mint in nineteen eighty five. The
(32:43):
contest was officially canceled in nineteen eighty six. The two
were no longer corporate partners and any dealings or relationships
they had were likely dissolved. So why would Atari approach
the Mint and why would the Mint offer to lend
a hand without any corporate connection. We were able to
contact Stuart Resnik, who was in charge of the Mint
during those years, and he has no memory whatsoever of
(33:07):
Atari sending the Mint a crate full of video game
prizes to be sold off for fifty thousand dollars or more.
That's not remotely definitive proof it didn't happen, But on
the other hand, it does seem like the kind of
thing you might remember. It's hard to believe that Atari
would willingly ship off the prizes back to Pennsylvania, particularly
(33:28):
when it took the company two years to reach what
they felt was a satisfactory resolution to the contest. If
Stephen Bell and Michael Rideout had refused, it's possible they
would have had to see the contest through, and if
they did, they couldn't have given them a bunch of
melted silver and gold in a puddle. The prizes would
have needed to survive at least until the summer of
(33:50):
nineteen eighty six, well passed the mint's new ownership and
Manny's tenure. There's also Robert Murphy, the sculptor we mentioned
earlier time at the Mint. He says he never heard
of any kind of repurposing program for materials, but he
did add that sometimes unwanted or unused items were sold
(34:10):
to employees at a discounted price. There were trailer sales
in the Mint's parking lot where Robert says workers could
buy things for pennies on the dollar. Of course, Robert
can't say for certain he saw the sword Quest prizes
during one of these sales, but he does remember what
he called some camelot type items, ornate products from Arthurian legend,
(34:32):
like swords and chalices, things that could have easily been
the sword Quest prizes on display at the museum, sold
to a visitor or employee, sent to a retail store,
or just simply destroyed all possible fates if the prizes
found their way back to the Franklin Mint. That seemed
(34:52):
dire and final The Mint's plant is gone now, and
so is the museum, raised and paved over in twenty nineteen,
though it's changed hands several times since the Resinus bought
it in nineteen eighty five. The Mint itself still exists,
pedaling coins, toy cars, and patriotic coffee mugs online, but
(35:14):
there's nowhere it could hang a sword if it still
had one. There's one more detail worth mentioning. Of the
three remaining prizes, one of them was the Philosopher's Stone.
While it did have a gold display case, it was
made of white jade, and you can't melt down jade.
(35:34):
For a long time, it's been accepted that Clive Young
discovered the only known photo of the sword. As it
turns out, all these years later, someone did take a
glamour shot of the sword a second photo. In reporting
this story, we found several newspapers from October nineteen eighty
two that had a picture in it. An unnamed technician
(35:58):
from the Franklin Mint is pictured, hoped in a white,
clean suit as though he were working in a laboratory.
He's cradling the sword of Ultimate Sorcery, It's hilt visible.
The caption says it was struck at the mint for atari,
along with the chalice, crown and talisman. It was a
photo distributed for promotional use, Lost and forgotten. The man
(36:20):
is looking at something that is soon to disappear, but
something that absolutely positively existed. This photo, like the ones
Clive found, is a little like a tiny fossilized bone
from a creature thought to be extinct. The images of
the prizes are incredibly rare. Most exist only as illustrations
(36:42):
in gaming magazines. Without them, it's likely no one would
be entirely convinced the prizes had ever been real at all.
Maybe that's what the photographer at the contest wanted, proof
not just of the prizes, but of their experience.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Here's Clive, a good enough player that you wound up
getting to be in this contest. When you have someone
take a photo of yourself, or even just take a
photo yourself like next to the story, it as opposed
to just the sword by itself or something. So it's
sort of an interesting thing of what's not in the photos,
which kind of makes me think maybe, like you know,
(37:18):
there were a couple of more personal photos that maybe
in somebody's photo albums somewhere in Levittown. But these were
the ones that somebody whoever it was, just sort of
tucked into an envelope and kept with their stuff. The
photos kind of look almost like photos that you take
is proof if you were a kid back then, you know,
like picks or it didn't happen. Yeah, this is really
(37:39):
what it looks like. Yes, that's the guy who wanted
Yes there really was a chalice. My extrapolating with that
actually knowing what I'm talking about, These photos strike me
as these were the photos you take to school to
say this is what I did on my summer vacation.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Today, the contest would be all over social media. Someone
would be live streaming it. But then these photos might
be the only tangible remnants of that experience. We've managed
to speak to a few of the contestants, but so
many more are lost to time, their stories, their ambitions,
their experiences.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So there is certainly a huge base of folks who
know about it, but beyond it, it's sort of like,
all right, well there are people who managed to do this,
but you don't know who they are. And you know,
today something like this would be all over the place.
You could look it up on the Internet. If there
were forty fifty sixty people who were in the Fireworld
contest and it happened today, you'd know everybody's names. Everybody
(38:37):
would have it up on their social media. Hey I
did this way. It is a mystery, And so that mysteriousness,
even if it's not an intentional mysteriousness, just purely because
so much of this is lost in the mists of time,
that gives it a certain are of something special. It
was also the first time, least I'm aware that something
this big was attempted by one of the video game companies.
(38:59):
And it also because it happened just as the first
push of video games kind of peaked, the entire video
game industry sort of collapsed in the early eighties.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
For Clive, the photos are perfectly emblematic of sword Quest.
A lot of threads to tug on.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Oh sure, it's a story with so many loose ends. Inevitably,
just because that last game never came out.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
One loose end we can tie up right now. Remember
that Clive was in Long Island to see his girlfriend.
That's the whole reason he found the photos. She's no
longer his girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
This girl who became my wife for the last on
teen decades.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Spoken like a true romantic. Clive's sword Quest had a
happy ending, but for the rest of the Atari faithful,
his discovery prompted more questions, but they wouldn't have to
wait long for an answer. Just two years after the
photos were found, someone else delivered an even bigger bombshell.
And that's someone was Ken Van Mersberkin.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
And then all of a sudden, this prototype in quotes
my air Quotes shows up on Neebay sword Quest Airworld
like No, can't.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Be Airworld, the lost sword Quest game That's next time
on sword Quest.
Speaker 6 (40:25):
The Legend of sword Quest is a production of iHeart
Podcasts and School of Humans.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
This episode was written by Jake Rosson and hosted by
Jamie Loftus producers are Miranda Hawkins and Josh Fisher. Executive
producers are Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, and
Jason English.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
Our show editor is Mary Doo.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Audio engineering by Graham Gibson, Research and fact checking by
Austin Thompson and Jake Rosson. Original score by Jesse Niswanger.
This episode was sound designed by Josh Fisher, mixing and mastering.
Speaker 7 (40:58):
By Jake Cook show logan by Lucy Quintonia. The voice
in this episode was provided by Jason English.
Host
Jamie Loftus
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.