Does anyone have a plated 1883 Racketeer Nickel?
TheLiberator
Posts: 1,028 ✭✭✭
Just curious. I have wanted to pick up on ebay but I don't know if they are the real fake or not! I would hate to buy a counterfit counterfit! 
Does anyone have an "original fake?" If so, how could you tell? Is the gold plating really worn down?
Does anyone have an "original fake?" If so, how could you tell? Is the gold plating really worn down? 
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People would gold plate them and try to pass them off as a $5 Gold piece.
The got the name Racketeer Nickel because people would go into the store and buy a 5 cent item and put a gold plated nickel on the counter with the "5" facing up. If the cashier took the nickel and put it in the drawer, they'd walk out.
If the cashier gave them $4.95 in change, they'd walk out with a profit.
The Mint added the word "Cents" later that year. So there is a 1883 No Cents and an 1883 with Cents.
This is my Eliasberg No Cents. It's one of my favorite coins because it comes with two stories.
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since 8/1/6
<< <i>I have one.
A Racketeer Nickel?
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
By the way, this is what I believe to be true... the person most famous for passing gold plated nickels as the new $5 gold coin was named Josh Tatum. His defense at his trial was centered around the whole thing being a joke. That's where the phrase "just Joshing" comes from for just joking! Even non coin people are familiar with that phrase!
Go BIG or GO HOME. ©Bill
I have a gold pieced piece that has a nicely reeded edge. If someone went to that much trouble there is a decent change that it was done back then. I also have one that came in a "starter set" of liberty nickels that my parents bought for me in the early 1960s when I was a YN. That piece had some plating on it, but no edge reeding so it may have been done years ago with fraud in mind.
<< <i>The term "your Joshing me" came from the racketeer nickel. A deaf mute by the name of Josh was passing these gold plated 1883 no cents nickels as $5 gold pieces. He was caught and brought to trail. It turns out the case was thrown out of court because Josh would simply hand the cashiers the racketeer nickel for payment and the cashier would assume it was a $5 gold piece. Being a deaf mute Josh couldn't talk, so he never told the cashier the the nickel was a $5 gold piece. This is a true story. >>
The joshing you part has been pretty much proven to be a myth as it is known to exist from the 1850's. From what I have read, they have not found proof of the rest of the story either. It is a great story though. (and the story is he would buy a 5 cent cigar and if he received change would take it)
Real ones would have a reeded edge, which nearly all do not (mine does not). Any part of it could have been done in later years.
Interestingly, Tom LaMarre, in an article for the August issue of Coins Magazine, found reference in the New York Times to a William C. Woodward, who was arrested in 1883 for trying to pass the plated nickels.
I guess you could now say "you're Woodwarding me."
<< <i>Yes, the Josh Tatum stuff is suspect. Eric von Klinger, now with Coin World, was probably the first to notice that "you're joshing" entered American slang long before Tatum.
Interestingly, Tom LaMarre, in an article for the August issue of Coins Magazine, found reference in the New York Times to a William C. Woodward, who was arrested in 1883 for trying to pass the plated nickels.
I guess you could now say "you're Woodwarding me." >>
I will have to get a hold of Tom. I spent hours going through the times on microfilm at school looking for anything. The problem is the times was a big paper even then, so I am sure I missed it. Would love to find the reference.