Did a coin dealer devise the Hawaii 5-O 1913 Liberty Nickel episode as a clever marketing scheme?
ColonialCoinUnion
Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭
I've often wondered about that.
You're a dealer (or perhaps a coin investor) sitting there with your 1913 Liberty Nickel brainstorming ways to maximize its value - and then it hits you: Weave it into the plot of a mediocre TV show.
So you call your sisters' husband Neil who has an old college buddy who is a writer on 'Room 222', and you chat about it but it doesn't seem to work in that comedic classroom setting. But then, just when you are prepared to abandon the idea, he mentions that he knows a guy who used to be a writer on Hawaii 5-0, and you start imagining scenarios where the coin ends up in Hawaii, you picture Jack Lord uttering the phrase $100,000 Nickel' eleven times during the episode, etc.
Sure, the lead times would be long, but the publicity would be huuuuge.
So, what was the previous record price for this issue before the epsiode aired? And then after? And who sold it?
You're a dealer (or perhaps a coin investor) sitting there with your 1913 Liberty Nickel brainstorming ways to maximize its value - and then it hits you: Weave it into the plot of a mediocre TV show.
So you call your sisters' husband Neil who has an old college buddy who is a writer on 'Room 222', and you chat about it but it doesn't seem to work in that comedic classroom setting. But then, just when you are prepared to abandon the idea, he mentions that he knows a guy who used to be a writer on Hawaii 5-0, and you start imagining scenarios where the coin ends up in Hawaii, you picture Jack Lord uttering the phrase $100,000 Nickel' eleven times during the episode, etc.
Sure, the lead times would be long, but the publicity would be huuuuge.
So, what was the previous record price for this issue before the epsiode aired? And then after? And who sold it?
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Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
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--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Two earlier episodes involve smuggling gold bars into the island and another needed Garrett's help in tracking down plates used to make counterfeit $20 bills.
Joe
Coin dealers aren't that smart.
Jim
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<< <i>I remember the scene where a whole truckfull of nickels spills out on the ground, and the the thieves are searching frantically for the 13 Lib. Finally some old man just happening to be walking by reaches down, picks up a nickel, and says to the little boy with him "Ah.. 1913. That's the year I was born. That's good luck"
I had forgotten about that scene!
<< <i>Hawaii 5-0 episode #134 was called "The $100,000 Nickel" and aired 12/11/73. Not bad publicity, but no one wore gloves. Maybe the coin had a stunt double. >>
Yes it did have a stunt double.
<< <i>So, what was the previous record price for this issue before the epsiode aired? And then after? And who sold it? >>
The previous record before the airing of the episode was $100,000 in a private sale from Abe Kosoff to World Wide Coin Investments on 10/3/72. And it was the specimen used on the TV show Hence the name of the episode. After that it looks like the next sale was three years later for $135,000. (At the rates available for CD's at the time $100,000 invested in CD's would have returned $133,000. So it wasn't a very great investment.)