Joshua Tatum and the 1883 Nickel

Hello! Have you ever heard the term, “Don’t Josh Me!”? Well, as it turns out, this saying was inspired by an interesting story involving coins.

For younger readers, and older readers who don’t know, the nickel, currently has an image of our third president,

Thomas Jefferson. 

(Top, left) However, this is not the only 

design in the nickel’s storied history. Before the current one, there was another image of Jefferson. (Top, right) Even before that, there was the well known “Buffalo Nickel”. (Bottom left) And even before that, over 100 years ago, there was the V Nickel. (Bottom, right)

V means five, representing five cents. The V Nickel

was first minted in 1883, however, for the first

several months,underneath the V, the word 'cents' was not there. Several 'entrepreneurs' saw a slight resemblance between the five dollar gold piece and the five cent piece. They started plating, covering in a thin sheet of gold, five cent pieces in gold and passing them as five dollar pieces. Now, I know that looking at these pictures below, they don’t look the same, but in a busy shop, at a glance, a gold plated nickel looks similar to a five dollar piece. 

Five Dollar Piece

A gold plated V Nickel

An 1883 No Cents

One such ‘entrepreneur’ was named Joshua Tatum. He was a deaf mute, (someone who can’t hear or talk) which is very important to the story. He plated nickels, and then would go to a cigar shop and point at a pack of five cent pack of cigars. When the clerk got them, he would then pay with a plated nickel. The clerk, if he didn’t notice the difference, would give him $4.95 in change. If he noticed the difference, he would give him no change. (at the time, it was NOT illegal to plate coins. It WAS illegal to tell someone that it was a five dollar piece, not a nickel) After several months of this, the police finally caught on and arrested him. Now, remember that he was a deaf mute, which meant he couldn’t talk or hear. When he was taken to court, his lawyer argued that, when he walked into the shop and signaled which cigars he wanted, he never actually spoke to the clerk. He had no way of telling him the clerk that his change was off and never actually tried to tell the clerk that the nickel was a five dollar piece. Therefore, the lawyer argued, he was actually innocent. Now, while the jury knew that he was passing them, and that he knew what he was doing. They realized that he was, by the letter of the laws, innocent. He was acquitted. The meaning of the term “Don’t Josh Me”, means don’t mess with me, or don’t try to fool me. As Josh Tatum did to shopkeepers back in 1883.

Now, while there are some who believe that this story is not true, I do. I would like to thank ‘Coins Magazine’ for much of the information from this article, Mr. Mitch Ernst, the President of the Omaha Coin Club for telling me more about this story and selling me a coin which is possibly an actual Josh nickel! I hope that you all have a great day!

JM