Coins in Movies or on Television

I purchased all of the NCIS series on Amazon and watch about an episode every day during "happy hour"; I know, get a life. I am going through them, again, currently on season 4 and oddly there were three episodes in a row involving coins to some degree.

S4-E3 - hotel heist where a coin exhibition is being held. Only a few brief shots of documents on the coins are shown, so not much in the way of photos.



S4-E4 - beginning of the show a bag of quarters falls from a dead marine's car when the door is opened. Later, a phone call from a kidnapper is analyzed, there is an odd, rhythmic "plopping" sound in the background. While investigating a tip Ziva and McGee hear a similar noise; turns out to be a cash-for-coins machine.



S4-E5 - dead marine has multiple fiancés, also has a stolen bag of gold coins hanging from the rafters in a storage unit, 120 ounces worth

 

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Google has plenty of Hawaii Five-O images.



But not much of anything else that I can find. There's Ingrid Bergman fliping a coin in Casablanca--"Franc for your thoughts." There's the fake coin that Leonard Nimoy was trying to trade to a Coin/Stamp collecting drug lord in Mission Impossible--Chico. There's an amusing scene in that one where the drug lord is weighing the fake coin on some huge produce scale. There's the bags-O-Gold in Good Bad Ugly. Found an image for that.



I wouldn't mind struggling like that for a bag of Double Eagles. There's also the dimes Clint Eastwood shot at someone from a shotgun in one his Spaghetti Westerns. And then told the corpse to "Keep the Change." There was a shot of silver coins that some bandits had in Butch Cassidy and Sundance for the few seconds that they still lived.

And not in a movie but a real event there's the coin that Buddy Holly flipped to see who would fly with him on the only seat left: Tommy Allsup, a guitarist touring with Holly or Ritchie Valens. Ritchie "won" and Tommy lived to play another day. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone ever asked him what kind coin it was. Too tacky to ask, I guess. (It was probably a quarter. )

R.I.P Buddy, Big Bopper, Ritchie and pilot.

 

That sounds like an episode from the old 1970's S.W.A.T. TV series from 1975-76.

Remember that funky theme sound ?

 

Just watched "Becky" last night, and there's a scene where Becky tosses a 2007 Canadian quarter from the top of her fort to distract the bad guy into thinking it's the key the bad guys are looking for. (Spoiler: She then ziplines down on top of him and slaughters him with a broken ruler and a bundle of pencils. The fate of the quarter is unknown.)

 

"Woman of the Hour" (2023) is about a serial killer who appeared on The Dating Game TV show in 1978. The timeline of the movie is 1971-1979. A runaway and future victim breaks into a washing machine coin mechanism and quarters spill onto the floor. One of the quarters is clearly the post-2021 obverse. I guess you call that an anachronism.

 

Several are the 1999-2020 obverse, too.

 

One of my favorite movies of all time, I can't help but cringing every time Tuco smashes the bags open spilling the gold coins. My inner Numismatist always screams "doesn't he know he's gonna scratch and gouge those big coins with that damned shovel!!!?". LOL

 

I have that coin!

 

I remember the Jeff Chandler movie, he just came back from his trapping lines, and had a load of beautifull fur pelts. The trader gave him 20 mint state 1820s Half Eagles. Nive coins for nice pelts. Think the movie was Yankee Buccaneer.