1883 Racketeer Nickel In A Capital Plastic Style Holder. the racketeer nickel was developed after the U.S. mint issued the Liberty nickel in 1883. On one side it had the head of Liberty. On the obverse, it simply had the Roman numeral V and nowhere did it spell out its value as 5 cents. As it so happened, the nickel was close in size to the $5 gold piece, which had a similar design. So, as the story goes, a man named Josh Tatum began gold-plating the nickels and passing them off as $5 gold coins, for instance buying a 5-cent cigar then placing the coin on the counter and getting $4.95 in change. When he was finally caught, he was exonerated since he was unable to speak, and thus never actually misrepresented the currency.