You’re Kidding, Right?
When Liberty Nickel production was started in 1883, the first type did not have the word CENTS on them. Most people have heard about “Racketeer Nickels”, where unscrupulous individuals reeded the edge of the no-cents nickel, plated them with gold, then passed them off to unsuspecting merchants as $5 gold pieces.
The Mint caught on to this fairly quickly (about 5 million coins into the run, if that’s quick) and added the word CENTS to the reverse. The racketeers kept the Secret Service quite busy chasing down the passers of these nickels.
No one is sure who the first “racketeer” was. Many writers at the time related that a man named Josh Tatum was arrested and convicted of passing these plated golden nickels. What you may not know is that this is where the term, “You’re joshing me!” originated.
Would I kid you?
Clubs and Associations
- American Numismatic Association
- American Numismatic Society
- British Numismatic Society
- Central Ohio Numismatic Association
- Central States Numismatic Society
- Florida United Numismatists
- Numismatic Society of India
- the Cincinnati Numismatic Association
- The Royal Canadian Numismatic Association
- The Royal Numismatic Society
Coin Links
- Boy Scouts Merit Badge
- Buffalo Nickels
- Bureau of Engraving and Printing
- Calculate your coin's gold, silver, or metallic worth
- Coins & Currency in Colonial America
- David Lawrence Rare Coins Reference Library
- Dayton Metro Library – Coin Books
- Fixing PVC damage
- Indian Head Cents
- Legandary Coins and Currency from the Smithsonian
- Medalblog
- Mints of the World
- Monnaie de Paris
- NapoleonicMedals.org
- raregoldcoins.com
- Royal Canadian Mint
- Smithsonian Institution Collection
- Starting a coin collection
- The Kittredge Collection
- The Perth Mint
- The Pobjoy Mint
- The Princeton University Numismatic Collection
- The Royal Mint
- United States Mint
- University of Virginia Coin Collection
- Where is my coin from?
Coin News
Miami Valley Coin Dealers
Speciality Clubs
- American Tax Token Society
- Barber Coin Collectors' Society
- Dayton Diggers Metal Detecting Club
- Early American Coppers
- Encased Collectors International
- Fly-In Club
- Liberty Seated Collector's Club
- Medal Collectors of America
- National Token Collectors Association
- Numismatic Bibliomania Society
- The Bust Half Nut Club
- The Civil War Token Society
- The Colonial Coin Collectors Club
- The Elongated Collectors
- The John Reich Collectors Society
- The Society of Paper Money Collectors
- The Token and Medals Society
- Unrecognised States Numismatic Society
- Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collectors Club