CLUE 10- SOLUTION

This was a cool clue with a neat twist. We got it pretty quickly. After focusing unsuccessfully on each state's motto, inscription, etc. we asked ourselves what other state facts GC might expect us to know off the top of our heads at 4:30 in the morning in beautiful downtown Felton. That's when we hit on state capitals, which everybody can be expected to know - at least collectively.

We were temporarily stumped by the regular quarter, but then decided that the capital of the USA was Washington, DC and we'd use that.

The solution was to take the letter of the state capital's name corresponding to the number of quarters we'd received for that state. The reason GC reused some state names is that only about 10 state quarters have been issued so far, so they didn't have too many options for spelling the answer.

State Number Capital Letter
New Hampshire 4 Concord C
New York 4 Albany A
Massachusetts 3 Boston S
regular quarter 8 Washington, DC T
New York 2 Albany L
North Carolina 4 Raleigh E
Connecticut 7 Hartford R
Massachusetts 5 Boston O
Virginia 3 Richmond C

This gave rise to what I thought was the best line of the game when Justin called Game Control to report that we'd solved the clue, but first deadpanned: "We have a problem - we''re missing 8 North Dakota quarters."

BismarcK, get it?

CASTLE ROC(K)

Clue 11