Columbian Half Dollar mentioned in an old movie

[DWLange]

There was another thread about coin sightings in old movies, but here's a new twist: TCM showed several silent Laurel and Hardy short comedies the other night, including one titled Putting Pants on Philip (1927). This was early in the L&H partnership, and their familiar characters were not yet established. Thus was Ollie playing an American who has to meet his Scottish nephew, played by Stan, who is arriving aboard a ship. Philip arrives dressed in kilts, and this causes so much embarrassment to Ollie that the rest of the movie consists of his attempts to get Philip to wear long pants.

 

The introductory title card of the movie reads "The story of a Scotch lad who came to America to hunt for a Columbian half-dollar --- his grandfather lost it in 1893." It's no secret that the unsold Columbian halves were dumped into general circulation, where they wore down just like any other coins, but it's fascinating to learn that they were so familiar to movie audiences of the 1920s that viewers would be expected to understand this comic reference. I always believed that the general public of that time was oblivious to the coins they received in change, but this evidently was not the case.