Our Favorite Coins On TV Shows/Movies We Grew Up With

I liked some of those characters.

It's great watching shows and seeing actors that you know before they were famous. Unfortunately, nowadays, many of them have died.

Why was that a boo-boo ? They had them printing currency ? Or had the mint closed by then ?

 

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The Carson City mint didn't print currency; it only made coins. The mint was open during the time fram of the show, but it processed silver and gold, not paper.

Robert Conrad, Jim West, passed away recently. Ross Martin, Artemus Gordon, had a heart attack toward the end of the series and was out for a few episodes. He died a couple of years after it ended. Dr. Loveless, Michael Dunn, died years ago. He had a lot of medial issues. He died in his sleep in a London hotel at age 38 in 1973. Overall he appeared in 10 episodes.

 

So the show made reference to them printing paper, gotcha.

Yup....when I finally watched " The WWW" in re-runs it was the 1990's or early2000's....and Ross Martin had died long before I ever saw an episode. Ditto Michael Dunn (I remembered him from "Star Trek").

It's funny to just look at 2ndary and tertiary actors who never hit it big but made dozens or even hundreds of guest appearances on TV shows and made a living that way. For instance, Kathie Browne....repeat guester on "Bonanza"....lots of other solo guesting appearances....I remember her for her "Star Trek" appearance and also as the female police lieutenant in one of my favorite episodes of "Kolchak, The Night Stalker" -- and it turned out she was married to Darren McGavin in real life at the time (which I didn't know since the last names were different) !

Westerns were big for getting jobs in the 1950's and 1960's. At one time I think there was like 25 Westerns on TV (about 1958 or so)....by the mid-1960's down to like 12 or so...and by the early-1970's only a handful.

 

WWW is one of my favorites and leads me to share what I also collect - film and TV memorabilia.

Dunn's lab coat, Kiel's long coat and Ross Martin's clown disguise, which was a stock Western Costume issue also used on THE LONE RANGER, by Tonto, and on BURKE'S LAW.

 

"Death Valley Days" was a western-themed program which ran for years on television and had some numismatic episodes, including "Raid on the San Francisco Mint" and "The Private Mint of Clark, Gruber and Co".


"Raid on the San Francisco Mint" (1965) Ronald Reagan introduces the episode


"Raid on the San Francisco Mint" (1965) Ronald Reagan as banker William Ralston

There is more about this program at:
http://www.cointalk.com/threads/coi...-days-ronald-reagan-shows-us-the-money.310295

 

That's cool, thanks for sharing.

 

You should be on MeTV's "Collector's Call" !!

 

Thanks. I used to get calls from other reality shows, although most, like PAWNS STARS, just wanted a costume to use on the show without me, but I saw no upside in participating.

 

Seen "Collector's Call" ? It's pretty good !

 

No, I have not. I did look at the episode guide.

 

I have been watching the Waltons and in the episode called "The Journey" he is blown away when he is shown a 1879 20 dollar liberty head gold coin a woman was given for a wedding present. That woman also said:

"Even last year when president Roosevelt said we had to hand in all our gold coins, I just could not part with it."

John Boy then said

"I am sure Mr. Roosevelt would understand."

The woman responded

"If not, I am sure Mrs Roosevelt would"

So this means this episode takes place in 1934.

Took these pics.

 

The Big Valley: A Time To Kill (S1, Ep 18, aired January 19th, 1966)....just aired today, William Shatner's character sends 1/2 of a split Morgan Dollar into Jarrod Barcklay's (Richard Long) office to let him know he has arrived. Barclay has the other half of the dollar.

Amazing how many of our favorite TV stars in later life appeared in these hour-long 1960's dramas and Westerns.

 

Sort of related, but in the movie "The Flying Leathernecks", one of the characters (might have been John Wayne) has a letter in his hand that has a postage stamp on it that wasn't issued until the war was over...

 

Offhand I remember 2 coin-centric episodes not mentioned here.

1 episode of the Lucy Show. I think someone shows the girls a Redbook and gets them excited about how a penny can be worth 50 dollars. They are on a hunt for a 1912-S? (may be wrong). Then they go through a bunch of coins...eventually find a rare one...and then a gorilla happens for some reason. 30 year old Nick@Nite memories..

1 episode of Matlock that involved early proof sets that were stolen I believe. I remember him talking about being into collecting and talking about filling a penny board when he was a boy. And someone holding supposedly proof coins with bare hands and it making me cringe.

 

Here is one I saw today in the movie 'She'...it was a terrible movie about a man who is recognized as being the reincarnation of a priest of Isis by a coin portrait.



Ursula Andreas, Peter Cushing, Bernard Cribbins, Christopher Lee and the main character and the guy on the coin is John Richardson.



Really a medal not a coin but they call it a coin in the movie. Not a bad likeness.

 

Pretty sure I posted this in another thread on the same theme, but here is mine; Garbo thaler from QUEEN CHRISTINA (MGM 1933):

And, a screen shot:

 

I seem to recall an episode of the Roy Rogers TV series that involved a bag of double eagles that turned out to be counterfeit. At the end, when they were taken to the assayer's office, they turned out to be made of platinum, which at that time, was pretty cheap.

 

Two notes on previous posts:

A similar Greta Garbo prop coin without the Swedish legend appears in the 1945 MGM film "Yolanda and the Thief".


Yolanda and the Thief (1945) Greta Garbo prop coin

The Roy Rogers television show with the platinum coins is "Ghost Town Gold" from 1952.

It is on YouTube:


Note that the program is set in the 1950's as one character drives a jeep.

 

Yes, that is Roy's sidekick Pat Brady driving Nellybelle.

 

Hmm. That casts things in a different light -- by that time, platinum was more expensive than gold, AND legal to own!

Anybody with a half-hour to spare want to see how they played it?