I was wondering if anyone had them, their rarity, and a reasonable price for an ORIGINAL gold plated one. I like pictures
It would seem to me that it would be hard (or impossible) to prove that one is an original gold plated example...plus, what would you consider to be "original?"
I too have an interest in these nickels but that was the biggest problem I found. Which ones were original and which ones were modern. There really is no way to tell. My definition of original, would be the reason it was gold plated was to fool someone into thinking it was $5.00 gold. Modern would be to fool someone it was a racketeer nickel or it was made as a novelty. Since I could not get past this, I did not purchase one. Mike
I have seen a large number of obvious fakes, especially on eBay. The most common fake I have seen is where a worn 1883 NC nickel has been plated. Basic dedutive logic leads me to the following conclusion: 1) Gold-plated 1883 NC nickels may have fooled shopkeepers for a while but not for long. A shopkeeper would only need to be burned once before he wised up. And I am sure the word spread fast that the new nickels were being gold plated and passed off as $5 gold pieces. The Racketeer Nickel scam lasted for a few months at best. 2) Uncirculated or very lightly circulated 1883 NC nickels would have been plated to make Racketeer Nickels because this scam started when the coins were released and was very short lived. 3) Genuine Racketeer Nickels that continued to circulate would have the gold plating worn off the high points of the coin as the coin circulated. 4) It took many years of circulation for an 1883 NC nickel to be worn down to F or VF condition. Therefore we can deduce that well-worn 1883 NC nickels with gold plating over the entire coin are not genuine Racketeer Nickels because they were plated AFTER the coin had a lot of circulation wear and this plating had to have occurred many years later than 1883. I suspect the vast majority of these well-circulated coins have been plated in the last several years, not to fool a shopkeeper, but to fool unwary collectors.
Another point is that (most) racketeer nickels will have carefully reeded edges made by the scammers.
