The Beverly Hillbillies - The Big Bank Battle (1965)

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Coins on Television

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Coin album with a rare San Francisco 1894-S dime

This episode of the television program "The Beverly Hillbillies" shows a coin album with a very rare United States coin, an 1894-S dime.

The "The Beverly Hillbillies" was a half-hour television program which ran on the CBS television network from 1962 to 1971.

The program was a comedy about a group of Tennessee mountaineers or "hillbillies" who become wealthy from oil found on their land and move to the famous city of Beverly Hills, California.

This episode is titled "The Big Bank Battle" and was first broadcast on May 5, 1965.

A greedy banker tries to interest the clan's leader Jed Clampett in various hobbies, including coins.

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1. Program title

The Clampetts, Elly May, Granny, Jed, and Jethro, arrive in Beverly Hills. They move into a mansion in the city.

Milburn Drysdale runs the "Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills" where the Clampett funds are deposited. He is greedy and always trying to get more control of the money. Jane Hathaway, a stuffy spinster, is his principal assistant.

Jed feels the need to help his neighbors so he sets up a portable handyman outfit and moves around Beverly Hills to sharpen knives at no cost to the residents.

2. Jed Clampett becomes a handyman

Drysdale lives nearby and doesn't like the scruffy Jed but has to be nice to him.

He visits John Cushing, a rival banker after the Clampett money.

3. Bankers Drysdale and Cushing

Cushing has a hobby where he builds model ships in bottles. He shows his latest creation which took three years to make.

4. Ship in a bottle

Drysdale has an idea to interest Jed Clampett in a hobby, borrows the ship model, and takes it to the Clampett mansion along with Jane and some books on stamp and coin collecting.

5. Drysdale shows Jed the ship

Jed is practical and isn't interested in the ship.

Jane has brought some stamp and coin albums.

6. Drysdale and Jane discuss hobbies with Jed

Drysdale opens a stamp album and shows Jed a Hawaiian stamp worth $50,000. Jed isn't interested because doesn't mail that many letters and doesn't know anyone in Hawaii to write to.

Jane: "Uh, well, let's take a crack at numismatology, or, as some lexicographers would prefer, numismatics." Drysdale: "Now, Mr. Clampett, here's a hobby that's worth anybody's time... collecting money." Jed: "Mr. Drysdale, if there's one thing I don't need, it's more money."

7. Drysdale and Jane suggest coin collecting

Drysdale is holding a coin album with the title "Rare Coins" added.

Drysdale: "Now, wait, just take a look at these coins. This collection belongs to a friend of mine. You see that dime? Jed: "Yeah." Drysdale: "He paid $12,000 for that."

8. He paid $12,000 for that?

Jed: "He got slickered. A dime is only worth ten cents." Drysdale: "Not this one, this was minted in San Francisco in 1894."

9. Coin album page

An 1894 Barber dime appears in the center, it is probably the commoner Philadelphia mint coin.

Jed: "You better help your friend, Mr. Drysdale. He needs you. And hope he aint toting that dime when he gets a sweet tooth cause no matter what comes out of the machine, he ain't going to enjoy it."

Drysdale and Jane give up and leave, later Jed heads over to Cushing's rival bank.

To entice Jed's money, Cushing appoints him a vice-president and loans him a pretty secretary.

10. Jed, bank vice-president

Jed doesn't have much to do there. Drysdale finds out about Cushing and Jed, comes over, and offers to fight Cushing for Jed.

11. Bankers fight over Jed

Jed stops the fight by leaving and going home. The family joins the handyman business, now using a truck.

12. Clampett family enterprise

Cast, Directors, Writers:

Buddy Ebsen as Jed Clampett
Irene Ryan as Granny
Donna Douglas as Elly May Clampett
Max Baer Jr. as Jethro Bodine
Raymond Bailey as Milburn Drysdale
Nancy Kulp as Jane Hathaway

Director: Joseph Depew
Writers: Paul Henning, Mark Tuttle

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