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hello i have a 1954 hollow nickel i had got many many years ago i did some reasearch the best i could and the only thing i can find is about a russian spy around that time in nj had them do you have any history on this and if it is an original coin from then what it would be worth?
rodney clark
Hello Rodney,
)
This is fast becoming an urban legend; the hollow coin is nothing new.
The Opium trade in the past 200 years or more often hollowed out coins to fill with drugs for smuggling and the drug user to carry.
A value for any of these pieces is whatever they can sell for to a collector. Since the coins are altered they have low numismatic value to coin collectors.
Few ordinary folks suspected the coins were hollowed out.
Below are some facts of the original hollow nickel but in the 1950’s most used larger coins even dollars for this purpose.
Here are excerpts from the FBI FILES;
It all started 56 years ago in June, when a Brooklyn newspaper boy picked up a nickel he'd just dropped. Almost like magic, the coin split in half. And inside was a tiny photograph, showing a series of numbers too small to read.
Even if the boy kept up with the front page news on the papers he delivered, he probably never would have guessed that this extraordinary coin was the product of one of the most vital national security issues of the day: the growing Cold War between the world's two nuclear powers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
The investigation begins. The coin ultimately made its way to the FBI, which opened a counterintelligence case, believing the coin suggested there was an active spy in New York City. But who?
New York agents quickly began working to trace the hollow nickel. They talked to the ladies who passed the nickel on to the delivery boy, with no success. They talked to local novelty store owners to see if they had sold something similar. None had seen anything like it. A lot of shoe leather was ruined, but no hot leads emerged.
Meanwhile, the coin itself was turned over for expert examination. FBI Lab scientists in Washington pored over it. They immediately realized the photograph contained a coded message, but they couldn't crack it. But the coin did yield clues. The type-print, Lab experts concluded, must have come from a foreign typewriter. Metallurgy showed that the back half was from a coin minted during World War II. Ultimately, the coin was filed away ... but not forgotten.
The key break came four years later ... when a Russian spy named Reino Hayhanen defected to the U.S. Hayhanen – really the American born Eugene Maki – shared all kinds of secrets on Soviet spies. He led FBI agents to one out-of-the-way hiding place, called a "dead drop," where FBI agents found a hollowed-out bolt with a typewritten message inside. When asked about it, Hayhanen said the Soviets had given him all kinds of hollowed-out objects: pens, screws, batteries, even coins. He turned over one such coin, which instantly reminded agents of the Brooklyn nickel. The link was made.
From there ... Hayhanen helped investigators crack the code of the mysterious hollow coin and then put them on the trail of his case officer, a Soviet spy named "Mark" operating without diplomatic cover and under several false identities.
After painstaking detective work, agents figured out that "Mark" was Colonel Rudolf Abel, who was arrested on June 21, 1957. Though Abel refused to talk, his hotel room and office revealed an important prize: a treasure trove of modern espionage equipment.
Abel was eventually convicted of espionage and sentenced to a long jail term. In 1962, he was exchanged for American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the USSR.
In the end, a nickel was worth a great deal: the end of a Soviet spy and the protection of a nation.
For more information look at the FBI page for the case file.
This is nothing new , Good Luck
PapaJack
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PAPAJACK
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Knowledge of United States Coins from 1793 to date. Able to answer most common numismatic questions. Collected U.S. Coins from half cent to 50 dollar gold coins.
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United States Coin COLLECTOR/DEALER OVER 20 YEARS, U.S. COINS Worked trade shows,
EXPERT Consulting since 1990, Knowledge of all methods of fabrication used in the industry.
Hobbies:US notes, clocks, cars, computers, coins, leisure activity and crafts to name a few.
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