Twenty-dollar gold piece 1839, the Red Book doesn't have it but Red Skelton does

WillieBoyd2

The 1942 MGM Red Skelton comedy film "Whistling in Dixie" has Red and his girlfriend Ann Rutherford in Georgia involved in a hunt for a Confederate cache of money.

At one point a character finds a coin and matches it with one he already has

Great Britain coin 1859

The coins read "GREAT BRITAIN" and "1859", but the inscriptions appear to be stamped onto the reverses of Spanish colonial "pillar" coins or prop coins.

Later they find a treasure chest filled with Confederate paper money. Red tells the others:

For a while I thought I had this thing solved.
Gordon found the trunk, somebody he confided in knocked him off to get it.
Who would commit a murder for a trunk of confederate money.
Everybody knows it's worthless.

Under the paper money is a box full of gold coins. Red holds one up to show it to the others.

Red holding coin

Hey look, a twenty-dollar gold piece 1839.
A coin collector would give you seventy-five cents for that thing.

The United States started making twenty-dollar gold pieces ("double eagles") in 1850. However the Dahlonega Mint opened in 1838, could they have made it?

Another coin appears in the film, this time a modern nickel which Red gives to a delivery man as a tip:

Here's a brand new American dollar for you.
That's only a nickel.
That's the new American dollar after all the income tax has been removed.

ricko

I have never seen that movie, but Red Skelton was a great comedian... he could make you laugh or cry just with expressions and actions....what talent. We surely have none of that today.... Cheers, RickO

BillJones

If you ever read Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" you will find a passage when Huck floats a $20 gold piece to another character on a board. That would have been hard because the book was set, I believe, 1836, 14 years before the coin was issued for general circulation.

I might be fuzzy on the details. I re-read the book in my twenties after I had read in high school.

And yes, Red Skelton was one of the best. Tapes of old TV shows are still very entertaining. Few people know this, but he was outstanding painter also. His paintings of clowns sell for substantial amounts.

LanLord

You guys are missing the point!

Who is the babe?

garrynot

I checked IMDB. One is Ann Rutherford. The other might be a Diana Lewis.

carabonnair

@BillJones said:
If you ever read Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" you will find a passage when Huck floats a $20 gold piece to another character on a board. That would have been hard because the book was set, I believe, 1836, 14 years before the coin was issued for general circulation.

I might be fuzzy on the details. I re-read the book in my twenties after I had read in high school.

Sure enough --

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 16, Page 3

Say, I reckon your father’s poor, and I’m bound to say he’s in pretty hard luck. Here, I’ll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you; but my kingdom! it won’t do to fool with small-pox, don’t you see?”

“Hold on, Parker,” says the other man, “here’s a twenty to put on the board for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you’ll be all right.”