This episode of the television program "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is about a couple who find some old coins in a metal lamp hidden in an old desk. "The Dick Van Dyke Show" was a half-hour television situation comedy which ran on the CBS television network from 1961 to 1966. It is about a couple, Rob and Laura Petrie, who live in New Rochelle, a city near New York City. Rob is a writer for a television program and Laura is a "housewife." This episode is titled "The Great Petrie Fortune" and was first broadcast on October 27, 1965. Rob's 100 year old Uncle Hezekiah Petrie dies and leaves him an old roll-top desk. Rob and Laura and their friends Sally and Buddy search the desk and find an old metal lamp filled with old coins including US Indian Head or Buffalo nickels. They invite a coin dealer, Mr. Harlow, to examine the coins and determine their value. A "Red Book" (A Guide Book of United States Coins) is shown along with a pile of coins.

A group of people, all relatives or friends of the late Hezekiah Petrie, gather at an attorney's office for the reading of his will.

Most of the people are openly greedy but Rob and Laura Petrie, standing to the left, are just curious about the uncle whom Rob hasn't seen since he was 12 years old.

Various people receive bequests of money or property, some comical like several thousand "3-D" motion picture glasses. The lawyer asks everyone to leave the office except for Rob and Laura, who are to witness a short film made by Uncle Hezekiah.

The attorney has a home motion picture projector set up and runs the film.

Uncle Hezekiah, also played by Dick Van Dyke, stumbles around an old roll-top desk and explains that it has something valuable hidden in it. The desk is delivered to the Petrie's home later on. The couple open the desk and examine the comical contents like a Confederate States bond, a crystal door knob, and a baby picture of Uncle Hezekiah taken when he was born at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1863. The Petries invite their friends Sally and Buddy over to look at the desk.

They find an old Arabian style metal lamp.

They make jokes about genies granting wishes and then discover that the lamp is filled with old US coins. They pour out the coins onto a table.

The searchers find some US Indian Head or Buffalo nickels. Rob invites a coin dealer, Mr. Harlow, to examine the coins.

Mr. Harlow uses a magnifying glass to examine the coins.

Mr. Harlow has brought a "Red Book" the informal title of the well-known numismatic reference A Guide Book of United States Coins by R. S. Yeoman which has been published yearly since 1947. The dealer examines the Buffalo nickels and points out that there are two varieties of the 1913 nickels, one where the buffalo is standing on a mound and the other the buffalo is standing on a straight line. The dealer tells the people that the collection is worth around $400 but that by the "turn of the century" (35 years later) it will be worth thousands of dollars. Buddy and Sally leave and Rob and Laura take Uncle Hezekiah's baby picture out of a frame.

They find that the back of President Abraham Lincoln is also in the picture along with the initals "MB" for famous civil-war photographer Matthew Brady which would make the photograph valuable. The Petries discuss selling the photograph.

The Petries decide to keep the photograph. The next day Rob is back at the office.

Buddy and Sally make jokes about photographs of Abraham Lincoln on five-dollar bills.

Dick Van Dyke as Rob Petrie and Hezekiah Petrie
Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie
Rose Marie as Sally Rogers
Morey Amsterdam as Buddy Sorrell
Dan Tobin as Leland Ferguson (Lawyer)
Forrest Lewis as Mr. Harlow (Coin dealer)
Director: Jerry Paris
Writers: Ernest Chambers, Jay Burton, Carl Reiner