New York Times, Monday, October 5, 2015

Inspiration can strike anywhere. I was in the parking lot at Save-On-Foods when I noticed something different about the 1973 quarter I was using for the shopping cart. During that year, to commemorate the centenary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the reindeer on the reverse side had been replaced by a horse and rider. Naturally I thought of QUARTER HORSES and the idea of a numismatic theme started to form.

Had I done my research I might have discovered Sherry Blackard's puzzle of Monday, August 13, 2001 and that would have been the end of it. As it was I went ahead and came up with three possible theme entries, but I knew that wouldn't be enough to impress the editors. Then the penny dropped: I found that THREE CENT PIECES would conveniently pass through my three theme entries. I had struck crossword gold! Well, silver actually. Anyway, that's what sold the puzzle, and that buys a cartload of groceries.

The three cent coin was proposed in 1851 mostly as a result of the reduction in postage rates from five to three cents. Over 74 million coins, silver at first then nickel, were minted from 1851 to 1889. The silver coins issued from 1854 to 1873 at 3/4 of a gram (about 1/38 of an ounce) were the lightest weight coins ever minted by the United States.

My first submission had no less than fifteen entries "that would make for unenjoyable solving," but the third attempt was right on the money. Of the published crossword, only 19 clues were totally rewritten by the editors while 18 were my originals. Each of the other 39 underwent a minor edit: small change, to coin a phrase.

PENNY DREADFUL, what a colorful term! Along with common phrases NICKEL AND DIMING and QUARTERHORSES, the puzzle nicely covers the first four US coins.

I liked the long fill, too. EVIL GENIUS is a snazzy enough entry on its own, but referencing the great Lex Luthor makes it even better. (Boo, goody-goody Superman!) TECHNIQUES isn't as strong, but I appreciate getting a Q worked smoothly in.

THREE CENT PIECES … my initial impression was that it felt out of place, because it's out of circulation these days. There is something cool about a bonus quasi-themer crossing each of the three main themers, but it also muddied up the theme for me. I would have preferred either 1.) having an unrelated long down run through all the themers, or 2.) doing away with it so the middle entry could have been NICKEL AND DIME, for a cleaner set of PENNY / NICKEL / DIME / QUARTER.

Check out how many neat six-letter words there are today. REMORA, FERMIS (common units in engineering), the full AMEN-RA, MONICA, PIRATE, STANZA. They added so much to my solving experience. It reminded me of something Joel's been emphasizing with his lower-count puzzles: mid-length entries can greatly spice up a puzzle.

I also appreciated how smoothly Mike worked in the Z of ZULU / ZEST. Too often I feel like a J Q X Z gets shoehorned into a Monday puzzle, resulting in gluey bits galore. Some may argue that UVEA is esoteric, but as one of my previous careers was in ophthalmic pharma development, I'd have to politely disagree.

ADEN might also raise an eyebrow, given how that corner could easily have been TOUR / EDEN / NESS. But ADEN is a major port, and it's nice to get a little diversity, especially since we see EDEN all the time in crosswords.

A theme that made me think, very good fill with just minor OLA and TIOS kinds of stuff = an enjoyable solve.