I am bidding on some online auctions, and one item is a "Racketeer" nickel. What exactly does that mean? It looks like an 1883 V nickel. And yes, I put a bid on it anyway.
The 1883 Nickel has a Roman numeral V for 5, but not the word "CENTS." It was said that dishonest people gold plated them and passed them off as $5 gold coins. If a coin has been gold plated, there is no telling when that was done, though collectors have been paying a lot of them for years, decades, and generations.
When the nickel first came out, it didn't have the word "Cents" under the V. Since it was roughly the same size as a $5 gold coin, some enterprising criminals electroplated it in gold and passed it off as a $5 coin.
The first "racketeer" was a man named Josh and he was deaf and mute.He would buy a 5 cent cigar and just put the gold plated nickel on the counter.If the cashier knew what he was looking at Josh would walk out with his purchase.However, many times Josh would receive $4.95 change and would walk away a winner.He was eventually tried but not convicted because his lawyer claimed that he was unable to protest the cashier's "mistake". That's how we got the phrase "I was just joshing".
John Tatum was the guy. BTW, here's my Racketeer Nickel: You have to watch out for fakes, though, because replated '83 No CENTS nickels DO exist.
I purchased (knowingly so) a counterfeit Racketeer nickel a few years ago. It was a 1902 V nickel with the word "cents" that someone had gold plated and was trying to pass off as one of the Racketeers. I called him on it within earshot of several browsers at a booth at a local flea market. He gave it to me for 10c just to get rid of me. But at least I may have saved some Scouts from buying it ? I never learned if he had more than the one I got. gary
Well, that was a scam piece and what everybody said above is right. Watch out for fake gold-plated issues because there out there.
1883 "No Cents" liberty nickels were plated with gold and passed as $5 gold coins. As said before, Josh tatum, supposedly one of the more famous users of this scheme, was a deaf mute who would buy a 5 cent item and either leave with just his purchase, or $4.95 in change. My dad has 5 of them in his collection. I am fairly certain that 4 of the 5 are recently reproduced. His fifth I believe is genuine.
Counterfeiters of the "no cents" variety often buff the gold plating down so it is worn. Today, I don't think it is possible to tell a "real" one. It's a fun story and certainly others were said to have done the plating job. But I think moreso to sell to collectors than anything else. Especially after the scam was made known. I often wondered if the story were in fact true, or just a wives tale used to generate sales of the "racketeer coins" as curiosities at a buck a pop ? In any event, it made the annals of numismatic history. IMHO gary
Most folks don't know the story behind that slogan " I'm just joshing you " . Now you do . And no, I'm not joshing you .
Just keep in mind that the story is almost complete fiction. While there were people passing the gold plated coins as half eagles, there was no Josh Tatum, there was no court case, there was no mute defense, and the the term Josh meaning to trick or joke with dates fromn the 1830's. Fity years BEFORE the Racketeer nickel.
I do recall reading something a few years back, by Dave Bowers I believe, in regard to the racketeer nickel. He pretty much said what you did Conder, it's a fictitious story. I'm not sure if he had a theory about them or not, but he was in agreement with the point you made. Bruce
