Twenty-dollar gold piece 1839, the Red Book doesn't have it but Red Skelton does

The 1942 MGM Red Skelton comedy film "Whistling in Dixie" has Red and his girlfriend Ann Rutherford in Georgia involved in a hunt for a Confederate cache of money.

At one point a character finds a coin and matches it with one he already has


Great Britain coin 1859

The coins read "GREAT BRITAIN" and "1859", but the inscriptions appear to be stamped onto the reverses of Spanish colonial "pillar" coins or prop coins.

Later they find a treasure chest filled with Confederate paper money. Red tells the others:

For a while I thought I had this thing solved.
Gordon found the trunk, somebody he confided in knocked him off to get it.
Who would commit a murder for a trunk of confederate money.
Everybody knows it's worthless.

Under the paper money is a box full of gold coins. Red holds one up to show it to the others.


Red holding coin

Hey look, a twenty-dollar gold piece 1839.
A coin collector would give you seventy-five cents for that thing.

The United States started making twenty-dollar gold pieces ("double eagles") in 1850. However the Dahlonega Mint opened in 1838, could they have made it?

Another coin appears in the film, this time a modern nickel which Red gives to a delivery man as a tip:

Here's a brand new American dollar for you.
That's only a nickel.
That's the new American dollar after all the income tax has been removed.

 

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Red was one of my favorites growing up as a kid. One of the all time greats.

 

Same here Paddy.

 

My daughter just saw Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein for the first time. She loved it. Wasn't scared a bit, and laughed her heart out when Lou would yell "Oh Chick!"

 

Well he was right a coin collector MIGHT give 75 cents for an 1839 double eagle just as a novelty