Coins in Movies or on Television

RIP. Great actor, whether hero or villain.

 

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I watched Road to Perdition, set in 1938, recently. Coins appearing were correct. A Peace dollar was used to pay a kid and someone twirled a Walking Liberty half in their fingers at a bar. I didn't get a good look at the quarters on someone's eyes.

Of course, the reason they were correct was that the prop department sourced them from Harlan J. Berk in Chicago and Tom DeLorey made sure they were set up with the right coins.

 

Dennis the Menace.....

 

Dennis wanted a gum ball.

 

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  High School Caesar 1960

 

In "High School Caesar" the main character carries and shows a United States Liberty Head $20 gold coin.

 

Last night ME TV ran an episode of the Twilight Zone that featured a man addicted to a Vegas slot machine and numerous Morgan Silver Dollars. even ends with a Morgan rolling up to his dead body. James

 

Franklin!

 

I watched a rerun of NCIS last night, season 17 episode 16 that aired 2/18/2020 and highlighted an 1870-S Seated Liberty dollar. In the show there were 12 known and this was an un-discovered 13th, worth 1.4 million dollars.

USA Coin Book shows there are an estimated 15 worth $960,783 in AU50 and $2,149,943 MS60.

They only showed the coin briefly in the beginning, but towards the end it was on their big screen for a second. Now I know they don't use real coins, but they didn't even try to get it close, some serious creative leeway allowed



14 stars instead of 13 - and holding a torch?

 

You almost have to wonder with that much derivation whehter they were concerned about aiding counterfeiters or something. james

 

I would suspect that the show's producers would have a hard time getting a real one.

 

It's much closer to a Trade Dollar design than a Seated, but they weren't produced prior to 1873. They probably had fun coming up with their own "variety".

 

There are strict laws relating to the use of prop money but I'm only finding stuff about currency and not coins. Hard to believe they would make one just for one short scene so maybe there's a Hollywood source that has a wide variety ready for use?

 

It could be that if they made it look too realistic, they would have to include "copy" or be liable for counterfeiting themselves. The only part that makes me wonder is it has the "One Dol." on it, designating a value, seems that would be dangerously close.

Or, it could just be a visualization, not a photo of a coin at all. There was never a shot of it during the show that had any detail, only the picture of it on the big screen.

 

I was wrong - there is a short close up of the reverse of the coin, so not just an image. The closest I can find to this would be a Barber half or quarter, same basic position of the eagle with the shield, totally different design, but could be what they started with

 

Even has some realistic looking toning. It's reminiscent of some pattern coins as well, but I suspect it's totally made up and there's a prop company out there that has them.

 

To the best of my knowledge all the money used in the old Westerns looked like counterfeit monopoly money. However the folks at Perry Mason went above and beyond in their depiction of a Confederate seated Half dollar. James

 

Wouldn't need a real one, just two coins, an 1870 and a common S mint coin.

My first impression was type 1 silver eagle reverse