1883 (non-sense) Racketeer Nickel

Some one must have scratched the "CENTS" from the reverse, & gold plated it! ...A "poor man's racketeer nickel?" ...Is this the only one?

 

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IIRC, most of these so-called "racketeer" nickels are later novelties as opposed to the real deal, which would only make sense considering how common they are.

 

I don't know how one makes the distinction between a real fake and a fake fake lol... however there's never been much evidence that the whole "racketeer nickel" thing was especially widespread around 1883, if it indeed actually happened at all. It's probably just an enduring myth that people used to cash in on the novelty of it. I've never seen any so-called racketeer nickels that look like they were actually gold-plated contemporary to their original minting. Not saying that none exist, but if any were done they were probably done so cheaply and crudely that the gold plating would have flaked off by now or they would have long ago been discarded and/or destroyed. The irony is probably more nickels are gold plated now to fool collectors than was likely ever done back when the coins were contemporary to fool people into thinking they were 5 dollars instead of 5 cents. IMO, it's not worth attempting to collect such a thing (since it's most likely a fake anyway, that is a modern fake rather than a contemporary one lol...) because it just encourages more people to fake it, and also because logically, an altered coin should be worth LESS than an unaltered one, not MORE.

But if you're just collecting it for the novelty value... what difference does it make if the "novelty" is real or not? Especially since it's not actually real either way...

Just my 2 cents (or let's say 5 cents in this case lol...)

 

Nothing new here. It was quite a scandal back in the day.

 

And Bob? There were two types for that year. One with no cents (like your example pictured) and one with '5 cents'. The no cents coins were produced in lesser quantity than their '5 cent counterparts but were greatly hoarded.

 

Oh it probably did actually happen, but more is made of it today than it was then, quite likely. The "cents" was added pretty quickly so the problem wasn't given much time to spread. Perhaps "legend" is a more appropriate term than "myth" because while it certainly actually happened, the scope of the problem has been exaggerated greatly over the years. You'd think more of them were gold-plated than weren't by the weight people give to it now lol...

That aside, keep in mind that the gold-plating would have to be pretty cheap in order to make a fraudulent profit at the time... you'd need to use less than $4.95 worth of gold to make the scam worth it. The gold-plating would thus have to be very thin and crude. By now, that much gold would have flaked off and would not be even, especially if the rest of the coin is worn. So good rule of thumb: if the gold-plating looks good, it's probably fake (not contemporary). People didn't do this kind of thing to then not spend it and keep it in a box for 130 years. Quite a lot of the contemporary plated ones were probably destroyed, so it's likely few, if any, survived to the present, and if they did, the crudity of the plating would be quite obvious. If it is real, likely the gold would be very thin and flaky, and probably mostly gone. If it's even and uniform, and the whole coin is covered in it even though there's significant wear, you can be pretty sure the plating wasn't done in 1883. (How much value a "genuine fake" has is debatable since it's still an altered coin, but if you care about how authentic the faking is, this is a general guideline for figuring it out. I'm still not sure why a coin collector would want such a thing, and if it's for the novelty of it, why the authenticity of the novelty matters, but maybe that's just me; it's your money, collect what you want, just try not to get ripped off buying something that isn't what the seller purports it to be.)

Again the real irony is more "no cents" nickels are probably being gold plated now than ever were then lol...

 

Actually, Green... that is a "w/ Cents" example.

 

The eyes have failed me before, but I perceive nary a mention of 'cents' in that picture (photo) other than a "V".....

 

Yes, sir... same here. However, "CENTS" is not the only way to ID the variety (look above the wreath and below "STATES OF").

 

OK, seein' something but I can't make it out . What am I seeing?

 

E PLURIBUS UNUM.

 

Here's one I bought years and years ago.

 

Oh dear. What the hey? It's all in the wrong spot. So embarrassed....

 

No worries....

 

I will try to get a better pic. It does have "E PLURIBUS UNUM" above the V. The words CENTS, is scratched off. I have seen gold plated " No Cents" nickel's, but this is the first "Cents" racketeer. The gold on it is very old looking.

 

That wouldn't have been very difficult considering $4.95 worth of gold would have been nearly 8 grams a gold. Rather a lot to put on a five gram coin. Gold platings are usually very thin, and a racketeer nickel probably had less than a cents worth of gold on it.

 

I took a better image of the reverse. It was an 1883 "With Cents". ...?

 

You are correct. Someone buffed off the date.........

 

I would like to have one of these. What do they run?

 

They seem over-priced on e-bay........