"NCIS" is a military-themed television series which runs on the CBS Network. It started running in 2003 and is still running. NCIS is the United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service based in Washington DC. It is an organization which investigates crimes connected with the Navy or Marine personnel.

This episode is titled "Ephemera" and was first broadcast on February 18, 2020. A retired navy petty officer is found dead in a car and is quickly determined to be a suicide. A navy museum docent informs the NCIS team that the officer left a rare and extremely valuable United States coin, an 1870-S silver dollar, to the museum. The museum officials would like to sell the coin to finance their exhibits. The NCIS team soon finds out that the coin may have been stolen from a wealthy businessman whose daughter had been dating the navy officer in 1972. An imitation 1870-S silver dollar appears as the coin.

Retired US Navy Master Chief Arturo Amador is found dead in his car along with a note to the NCIS. Jethro Gibbs is in charge of the team which includes Nick Torres, Timothy McGee, and Ellie Bishop.

Marie Stanhope, a docent for a navy museum, appears with a silver dollar. She tells Gibbs that Amador worked for the museum after he retired from the navy and left the coin to the museum.

Back at their office Torres pulls up a computer picture of a similar coin.

The coin shown is the 1870-S Seated Liberty silver dollar but does not resemble an actual one.

The 'S' mintmark is the San Francisco Mint.
She tells the team that only around 12 were minted and it would be worth over a million dollars. A Spencer Downing visits the office and tells them that the coin was stolen from his father, a wealthy businessman and coin collector, and that Arturo Amador was dating his sister Annie Downing in 1972 at the time that the coin disappeared. Spencer asks the team to return the coin to him. Dr. Donald Mallard, a team member, tells the group that to determine whether Amador was a thief they will have to go through the "ephemera" that he left behind.

The team pieces together the story. In 1972 young sailor Arturo Amador meets Annie Downing at a dance and both fall in love.

It is 1972 and Amador, a sailor, goes to see Annie's businessman father Spencer to ask him for his daughter. Spencer shows Amador the dollar coin.

Spencer insultingly tells Amador that it is a rare coin, but that "you are a common quarter." Back in the present, Marie Stanhope shows NCIS Bishop the museum.

Back in 1972 Arturo and Annie continue seeing each other until Arturo is ordered to go to Vietnam. Annie becomes seriously ill and her father, believing that she will get well, no longer opposes her marriage. However she dies. In the present there is a macabre scene when two team members view Annie's body.

The team members open Annie's coffin and take some tissue samples. They note that Annie is wearing a wedding ring. In 1972 Arturo (in Vietnam) was writing to Annie's aunt Bertha and when he returns Bertha gives Arturo his letters to Annie.

The postage stamp is a US six cent airmail stamp from World War II (issued in 1941). The team also gets the postage stamps from letters Annie wrote while in the hospital.

These postage stamps also appear to be World War II issue three cent "V for Victory" stamps. One of the investigators believes that Annie was murdered by a poison mentioned by Agatha Christie, an English mystery writer, in one of her books. The NCIS tests the stamps and find traces of the poison still on them which Annie ingested while (in 1972) licking the stamps. They also find a suspect.

Gibbs and McGee accuse Spencer of poisoning his sister to get control of their father's business. Annie's Aunt Bertha visits the office to tell her story.

Bertha, who sided with Annie in her marriage dispute with her father (Bertha's brother), took the coin after Annie died and gave it to Arturo. Agent Ellie hands the coin to Bertha.

This coin obverse is shown.
Bertha tells the team to give it to the museum.

Several of the program actors also had roles in "Flashback" scenes set in 1972.
Mark Harmon as Jethro Gibbs / Flashback Annie's Father
David McCallum as Donald Mallard
Emily Wickersham as Ellie Bishop / Flashback Annie Downing
Wilmer Valderrama as Nick Torres / Flashback Arturo Amador
Sean Murray as Timothy McGee / Flashback Spencer Downing (Annie's brother)
Maria Bello as Jack Sloane / Flashback Aunt Bertha
Director: Diana Valentine
Writers: Donald P. Bellisario, Don McGill, Christopher J. Waild, Kate Torgovnick May