The $100,000 Nickel

The plot is really good. One of the rarest U. S. Coins is going to be auctioned at a Numismatic Convention. The 1913 Liberty Head Nickel, of which only 5 exist. Today's value (year 2023) is approaching $5,000,000.

International thief Eric Damien, played by the great actor Victor Buono, hires a man who is an expert at sleight of hand. Local con artist Arnie Price (actor Eugene Troobnick), pretending to be a well-heeled coin collector, will swap out a faked 1913 nickel for the real coin.

Eric Damien is assisted by master assassin Paul Anthony (actor James Grahlmann). Anthony is as cold-blooded as they come.

The swap of the fake coin for the real coin goes as planned, but the theft is discovered before Arnie can get out of the hotel. Per the Summary and other reviews, he deposits the coin into a newspaper vending machine to hide it.

From that point on, the story gets laborious. Arnie and his wife Millie (actress Hildy Brooks) run from place to place, and from scene to scene, trying to find the lost nickel. This is where the story begins to drag a bit. And some of the events are highly improbable.

This show could have been 10 stars... but there is too much filler. So, I rate "The 100,000 Nickel" 8 stars.

The scheme was simple. Have an engraver make a fake rare nickel, then get a sleight-of-hand grifter to substitute it for the real thing at a coin show where the real nickel is about to be auctioned.

Unfortunately for the grifter, Arnie Price, the selling dealer notices the switch before Arnie can leave the building, and thus begins possibly the most frustrating episode of Hawaii 5-0 ever. LOL

Arnie uses the $100,000 nickel to buy a newspaper to hide it. Then he tries to steal it from the man who collects change from the newspaper box. The nickels scatter in an alley and a little boy finds it before they do. The chain of events gets complicated and ... as I said ... frustrating.

And all the time 5-0 is on their trail ...