Where did the (old) expression come from? Did people actually circulate wooden nickels? Or were they some kind of advertising/publicity stunt?
It sounds like a publicity stunt-like the “apple sellers” on Depression-era street corners.
To me it sounds like something I’d say to someone who I suspected of being dumb enough to take fake currency as payment…
Like “Hey, when that guy shows up to buy this here widget, don’t you go taking any wooden nickels!”
I have a couple wooden nickels. They are both advertising/souvenir ephemera. One is from a county fair and the other from a small town’s “old home week” festival. They are both from the early 1950’s.
I have a wooden nickel, from Log Cabin Village. It’s a souvenir.
I know that in some company towns, the workers were paid in scrip, and not regular money. The scrip was good in the company stores and businesses, and maybe you could convince someone to take scrip in private deals.
I could also see a store issuing scrip or wooden coins if it was out on the frontier, and didn’t get much money in trade.
While there were plenty of wooden nickles used as souvenirs and the like in the 1950s, the slang expression goes back to about the 1920s. And it started earlier(the teens) as “don’t take any wooden money.” Just meant “keep on your toes,” “be alert.”
It possibly is a later version of “wooden nutmegs.” That goes back to the 1820’s.
Thisis one of the more interesting explanations I found with a quick Google…
One of my favorite eels songs.
Wooden Nickels
Wooden nickels?
Those sound as queer as a two-dollar bill!
That makes sense. “Wooden nutmegs” appears in Our American Cousin, as an Americanism in the mouth of the title character.
Good story but that’s queer as a “three” dollar bill.
The US government never printed any three dollar bills, but there were plenty printed in the pre-1861 period. They were legit private notes.
Damn! Got me hooked so I went and searched and antedated the OED(they haven’t done the “W” section sine pre-1989)
1892–“wooden nickel” to mean worthless.
1900–“wooden money” to mean worthless.
When I was a kid, I remember my city made wooden nickels for our sesquicentennial celebration. And a wooden vending machine to put them in.
Well, the first part’s true, anyway.
I know. I was trying to be clever by using a saying about a non-existent note to point out that some people think one that does exist, doesn’t.
One story goes that Connecticut is called “The Nutmeg State” as a backhanded “tribute” to the merchants of New England, who were known to sell wooden balls and pretend it was nutmeg.
I understand that (during the Great Depression, 1929-1939), many rural towns printed p scrip currency-some made actual wooden nickels.
The idea of wooden coins is pretty weird.