Coins in Movies - A 1910 silver dollar from the Civil War

Discussion in 'Coin Chat' started by willieboyd2, Apr 2, 2018.

  1. willieboyd2

    willieboyd2 First Class Poster

    The 1958 Twentieth Century Fox film "The Long Hot Summer" has a Mississippi man who thinks that he has found a Confederate treasure but discovers a 1910 silver dollar.

    The film is set in the state of Mississippi at the current time (1958) and is based on Mississippi author William Faulkner's novel The Hamlet and two short stories.

    Drifter Ben Quick (Paul Newman) gets a job on Will Varner's (Orson Welles) plantation and develops a relationship with Will's daughter Clara (Joanne Woodward).

    Will gives Ben a small piece of land known as the "Old Frenchman's Place" where a legend states that there is buried treasure from the Civil War.

    Will's son Jody (Anthony Franciosa) dislikes Ben and at a party starts an argument.

    Ben holds out a handful of coins and tells Jody that he found them on the "Old Frenchman's Place". The two men head there and start digging.

    [​IMG]
    Jody and Ben digging

    Jody finds a sack full of silver dollars and buys the land from Ben for $1,000. He then spends every free moment there digging for more treasure.

    One night his father Will Varner arrives and asks Jody what he is doing. Jody hands him a silver dollar and Will examines the coin.

    [​IMG]
    Will examines the coin

    Will tells Jody that the coin was minted in 1910 and was not hidden when people thought "Grant was coming during the War Between the States".

    Jody realizes that Ben "just took a couple of hatfuls of silver dollars and buried them to catch a sucker".

    The United States did not mint any silver dollars in 1910 so the identity of the coin is unknown.

    The 1910 silver dollar is only mentioned in the film. In the original novel, set around 1900, the found silver dollars are dated 1871, 1879, and "one made last year".

    All of these dates would be legitimate dates for silver dollars, the 1871 would be a Seated Liberty type, the 1879 and the "one made last year" would be Morgan types.

    The 1910 dollar could be a mistake on the part of the scriptwriters.

    There are silver dollars dated 1910, but...

    [​IMG]
    Mexico peso 1910

    :)
     
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  3. V. Kurt Bellman

    V. Kurt Bellman Yes, I'm blunt! Get over your "feeeeelings".

    Illegal immigrants????
     
  4. Could be a Philippines 1910-S Silver Peso (minted in San Francisco). TC
     
  5. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

    ...and could be that they just made it up.
     
  6. Collecting Nut

    Collecting Nut Borderline Hoarder

    I have several paper bills used on the movies. They are known as stage money so I would call this stage coins.
     
  7. sakata

    sakata Devil's Advocate

    More likely, they didn't have a clue and just guessed there had to be one because they had heard of earlier and later ones.
     
    Kentucky likes this.
  8. Numismat

    Numismat World coin enthusiast

    It did say old Frenchman's place, so perhaps a 1910 French Indo-China piastre? Would be a nice find too as that is a key date :)
     
    micbraun likes this.
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