Have you ever watched an old movie which shows close ups of old coins or bills? I recently watched the 1923 Harold Lloyd movie, Safety Last, and there is a scene where Lloyd buys a necklace. In his hand is a couple Mercury dimes and I think a Liberty nickle.
I look for that, too. Beverly Hillbillies reruns are a great place to see notes. You can even see the transition from wet to dry plate printing. There's even an episode that centers around "big money" - a hoard of large size notes and the confusion they cause. In the film "Girl, Interrupted" they at least tried to use period-appropriate notes, but used blue-numeral silver certs that hadn't been printed for fifteen years at the time the it was supposed to take place.
I have a section of my website devoted to coins in movies. They include: Greed / McTeague (1924) - US gold, Mercury dimes The Good Earth (1937) - Chinese The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) - Roman and Canadian The Maltese Falcon (1941) - Chinese and others Buffalo Bill (1941) - US Indian Head pennies Duel in the Sun (1946) - Egyptian medal The Brasher Doubloon (1947) - Title coin imitation The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) - Mexican peso 1924 King Solomon's Mines (1950) - Ethiopian Birr (Dollar) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) - Diamonds as money The Treasure of Lost Canyon (1952) - Two-part medal River of No Return (1954) - US Silver dollar The Wonderful Country (1959) - Mexican pesos To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - US Indian Head pennies Gidget Goes To Rome (1963) - US $10 Liberty Gold In Cold Blood (1967) - US Silver dollar Caligula (1979) - Roman coin imitation Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - Portuguese gold moidores
EDIT: Okay, this post makes no sense without the photo, so I'm re-doing it. Somwhere In Time (1980) starring the late great Christoher Reeve. A fellow propels himself backwards and forward in time, using a period cent piece as his "focus object". The majority of the film takes place around the turn of the 20th century but I wasn't into coins at the time I saw it so I can't comment on exactly what sort of cent it was.
On Dragnet, Sgt. Friday's partner Gannon was belly aching about not having any coffee. Joe tossed him a quarter which landed on the table. You could hear that beautiful sound silver makes when you drop them.
Lucy & Ethel roll search a bunch of cents in I love Lucy. The 1913 Liberty nickel gets switched for a fake in the old Hawaii 5-0. They put coins on the eyes of the dead prince in the modern movie Troy (couldn't make out the denomination but they appear gold). Did anyone cringe watching that modern treasure hunting movie (5-years back) where they are sitting around having a discussion about finding the treasure of gold coins while they continuously tap their one sample unique confederate gold coin on the table.
When thy put the coins on the eyes in Troy they made an error. The fall of Troy took place well before the first coins were invented.
I commented on an episode of Little House (IMDb) where Nells offered a couple of wild nephews Indian Nickels if they would behave. I noted that the time-frame for the series was near the turn of the century and the Indian (Buffalo) Nickels weren't produced until 1913.
There is a John Wayne movie with Dean Martin in it and at the beginning of the movie a guy throws a silver dollar into a spittoon.While watching that one time with my wife I said I would have gone after that. Of course she thought I was nuts. I told here that it had some luster on it. Interesting thread.
I remember one movie about OK Corral where Ike Clenton is shown running a Morgan through his fingers while playing cards.
You HAVE got to check this out on You Tube... one of my favorite shows from many moons ago... titled "the rare coin"... just a 2 minute sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz2xeKBYmVk
Rio Lobo from 1970, great movie. Wayne did the same movie with Robert Mitchum with the title El Dorado in 1966. Both version were produced by Howard Hawkes. No silver dollar in the El Dorado version though.
So THAT'S why people expect you to give them the value of a coin with no pictures and any indication of condition... Amos and Andy is quite a bit before my time, but I easily got sucked into that clip. I'll have to watch the rest on YouTube!
It's not very old but indecent proposal is on HBO right now....the doubler headed coin Redford uses to decide if they should go through with it looks like a ASE
Johnny Depp's "Public Enemies" During a bank robbery, one of the customers has some money out. I didn't notice bills, but I did notice the Walker Halves. The robber says, "put that away... we're here for the bank's money, not yours." MadMen on AMC In one of the flashbacks to Don Draper's childhood, his mom puts up a drifter for the night if he'll work around the farm. She offers him a Standing Liberty Quarter. (Which Don's dad swipes.)
Here's one pointed out by TraDollarNut on the PCGS Coin Forums: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k4mmq57sjE&feature=related Its called "Getting Even with Dad".
Coincidentally, David Lange started a thread earlier today on the NGC forums about this very subject. Here is another movie from 1925 that you can add to your list. http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=4668512#Post4668512 Chris