Dear John

[physics-fan3.14]

Just watched the recent movie "Dear John" under extreme duress (the group of people I was hanging out with wanted to watch it). Besides Amanda Seyfried being enchantingly beautiful, the movie was abysmally horrible.

 

But, one of the main characters was a huge coin collector. They show quite a few real coins (morgans, SLQs, a few others). The highlight of the movie, however, is when the character talks about the William Jenning's Bryan fantasy silver dollar that Bill showed us recently. I thought this was really interesting, especially since we had just talked about it.

 

So, anyone know of any other movies where actual real coins are shown, discussed, feature in the plot, etc?

[cpm9ball]

Just watched the recent movie "Dear John" under extreme duress (the group of people I was hanging out with wanted to watch it). Besides Amanda Seyfried being enchantingly beautiful, the movie was abysmally horrible.

 

But, one of the main characters was a huge coin collector. They show quite a few real coins (morgans, SLQs, a few others). The highlight of the movie, however, is when the character talks about the William Jenning's Bryan fantasy silver dollar that Bill showed us recently. I thought this was really interesting, especially since we had just talked about it.

 

So, anyone know of any other movies where actual real coins are shown, discussed, feature in the plot, etc?

 

In one of the episodes of Vegas, one of the women (Sam?) had an 1895 Morgan (didn't say what m/m if any) that was supposed to be worth $10K. Of course, it was raw and they were handling it with their bare hands, getting fingerprints all over it. Yeah, right!

 

Chris

[MJ]

need to work on my linking skillz-whoops

[mtnstyne]

Great, I have been intentionally not watching that movie and now I have to!

 

There was the famous episode of Hawaii Five-O with the 1913 Nickel. I didn't see it but read about it last time one of those nickels was auctioned in Orlando.

 

There was also an episode of "The Unit" where one of the wives found a Morgan silver dollar sewn into the beret of an old WWII vet and it turned out to be an 1889 CC or 1893 S (don't remember). She gets conned out of it outside the coin store when she goes to get it appraised and the store is closed.

 

And can't forget Pawn Stars...my new favorite reality show.

[Revenant]

My sister loves Sparks and his movies. I don't really get it. Most of those movies are freaking depressing. Someone always dies and it's never quite happy. I don't even know why women like them.

 

Edited to add: She actually used the coin collector angle to get me to watch it.

[Conder101]

Titanic where Rose pays Jack to sketch her with a 1912 Barber dime. The dime is clearly visible (but not the date. They used an AU 1912 dime and James Cameron now carries it in a case as a watchfob.)

 

In Pearl Harbor they made a numismatic error. In the movie theater release, during the boxing scene on the deck of the Arizona a couple days before the attack you see the men placing bets with Hawaii overprinted paper money. These notes were not released until 1942. When the money was released on DVD this error had been corrected and the overprints are gone.

[pendragon1998]

The Raymond Chandler novel, The High Window, features a Brasher dubloon. The novel was made into two movies (re wikipedia)

 

"Two film adaptations of the novel have been made. The first was Time to Kill , directed by Herbert I. Leeds and released in 1942. The second adaptation was The Brasher Doubloon, directed by John Brahm and released in 1947."

[jesbroken]

I haven't seen it yet, but their is a movie available re:Ted Binion's murder and silver coin theft. The two defendants were first convicted of the murder but then under supreme court jurisdiction were retried and found innocent of the murder, but were convicted of the theft of the silver coins---go figure--both the defendants are serving time for the 1998 incidents. With over 100,000 high quality Morgan and Peace dollars, the collection or hoard, as you would have it, is quite famous.

Jim

[cpm9ball]

I haven't seen it yet, but their is a movie available re:Ted Binion's murder and silver coin theft. The two defendants were first convicted of the murder but then under supreme court jurisdiction were retried and found innocent of the murder, but were convicted of the theft of the silver coins---go figure--both the defendants are serving time for the 1998 incidents. With over 100,000 high quality Morgan and Peace dollars, the collection or hoard, as you would have it, is quite famous.

Jim

 

Save your money on this one! You won't see any collectible coins in it anyway.

 

Chris

[WoodenJefferson]

 

 

In the 1983 music video “Billie Jean“, Michael Jackson’s character flips a Kennedy half dollar into a beggars cup, transforming the bum into a well dressed socialite.

[Coindude]

I would have never picked WJ as a MJ fan!

[WoodenJefferson]

I would have never picked WJ as a MJ fan!

 

With MTV in it's infancy and already having a 13 year old girl in 1983, I was "hip" to all the new songs and vids, especially "Thriller"

[swhuck]

Hmmm...

 

Sahara: Numismatic theme, lousy execution

Ghost: Sam makes an Indian Head cent move, if I remember correctly

The Dark Knight: Harvey Dent and his pocket Peace

 

Not quite numismatic but entirely about money: Die Falscher (The Counterfeiters); won the Foreign Language Oscar a few years back; based on the true story of a Nazi counterfeiting scheme run out of a concentration camp using the talents of imprisoned engravers.

[physics-fan3.14]

Stewart, I saw Die Falscher in theaters, and thought it was a really good movie. It was a little depressing, but the story was amazing.

 

I saw Sahara for the first time the other day, and couldn't help but cringe every time he mis-handled that poor gold coin.

[lclugza]

Here's an old thread "across the street" on this very same subject:

 

http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=26&threadid=107523

[James_OldeTowne]

There's an excellent Steve Martin movie (non-comedy, "Twist Of Fate" maybe?) where he plays a drunk who secretly has a large stash of gold Liberty double-eagles. The genuine coins actually get a pretty good amount of screen time. Also, in this same movie, there's a pawn shop scene where coins are discussed using actual numismatic terms. As far as a movie with a coin-related theme, this is the one that to my personal knowledge has the most extensive use of coins in it.

 

Speaking of Steve Martin, check out some of the fanciful scenes in "Pennies From Heaven".

[Conder101]

Not quite numismatic but entirely about money: Die Falscher (The Counterfeiters); won the Foreign Language Oscar a few years back; based on the true story of a Nazi counterfeiting scheme run out of a concentration camp using the talents of imprisoned engravers.

Good movie, but not real accurate to the storyline of what actually happened. As is usual, the movie is good, but the books are better.

 

If you want the real story of what really happened in Sachsenhausen then read The Devil's Workshop by Adolph Burger (who was the technical consultant for the movie) and Counterfeiter by Moritz Nachtstern. They were two of the Jewish prisoners actually in the concentration camp making the counterfeits, so these are first hand accounts. (One of the neatest things I have seen recently was an Operation Bernhard note actually signed by these two men. They signed it at last years MPCfest. I know some people going to it this year and since they are supposed to come back again I'm going to try and get one signed. These men are in their 80's so there won't be too many more chances.)

 

If you want information leading up to the counterfeiting, some of what went on in the camp, and what happened at the end (The movie has it all wrong) then read Kruger's Men by Lawrence Malkin (He has all the original British, American etc intelligence agencies primary source documents available on his website as well.)

 

If you want to know what the counterfeits were used for then I recommend Operation Bernhard by Anthony Pirie.

 

If you want more detailed information about the counterfeits themselves then you want Nazi Counterfeiting of British Currency During World War II: Operation Andrew and Bernhard by Bryan Burke. The first four books are cheap and readily available. The last one is hard to come by (although there are three on Amazon) and will cost $250 - $300. If you are an ANA member you might be able to borrow a copy from the Library.

[TheMightyDuke]

The Ted Danson movie brought up in the old thread ATS is called 'Getting Even with Dad', with McCauley Culkin......Danson and some cronies plot a heist out of PCGS while the building undergoes renovations (saw it a few years ago, and just saw it again on the 4th, on Starz.....it's actually on tonight, Fri, at 11pm, and Wed afternoon at 2:55pm, both on StarzKids). There are quite a few slabbed coins (as well as a printout of certain coins, the grades, value and remarks...for instance, it shows an 1881-S Morgan, MS65, valued at $25,000....1876-S Seated Lib Half, MS62, valued at $4,000......1924 $20 Saint, MS63, valued at $78,500, 'BRILLIANT'.....1864 IHC CuNi (called COPNICK on the printout), MS64, valued at $75,000, 'SEMI PL'),.....1941 Walking Lib Half, MS62, valued at $75,000, 'SEMI PL'...1927 $2.5, MS60, valued at $2,450....the list goes on and on. They show the handling, actual slabbing of the coins....pretty cool. Even though I wasn't into coins in '94, those prices seem a 'bit' off??? There's a whole spreadsheet at the very beginning, with the credits still rolling (I DVR'ed it, and have it on the screen now looking at the coins/grades/prices).

 

There is a play discussed as well, a David Mamet play, made into a movie, called 'American Buffalo', with Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Franz.....again, the plot revolves around a break-in to steal, well, an alleged valuable Buff nickel.

 

Funny, seems alot/most of these movies with coins as a theme, involve the theft of said coins. Is art imitating life or life imitating art?

[physics-fan3.14]

I think I saw parts of that Danson movie years ago, and have always wondered what it was called so I could find it again. Thanks Duke!

[HiHoAudio]

I'm afraid my eyes would be glued to Amanda Seyfried and everything else onscreen would be secondary. Even rare coins.

 

I watched some of American Buffalo but it became a tad depressing.

 

Wasn't there a terrible "Dennis The Menace" movie a few years ago where Mr. Wilson's small collection of large gold coins was stolen?

[swhuck]

Conder, I'd actually visited Sachsenhausen before I saw the movie, so I knew the story somewhat. Interestingly, when I walked into the movie I didn't realize that it was about that subject, but it was clear when I saw it that they were taking liberties. (numismatic pun omitted)

 

That having been said, it was a good movie and I thought it handled the subject matter of making fake money pretty well.

[nunfa0]

I know this is an old thread but I could not resist. In a recent Australian tv series, Underbelly: The Golden Mile, a family feud is started by the theft of a 1930 Australian penny.

 

Also in the first episode of Eastwick three main characters are drawn together by the sudden appearence of three walking liberty halfs.