It's not worth a plugged nickel. So went a saying that has now fallen out of use. Apparently my idea of a plugged nickel as one with a hole though it (and my brother had the same idea) was wrong.
According the The Phrase Finder, there was a time when people made holes in coins and filled them with cheaper metals.
Sounds like a labour-intensive kind of counterfeiting, especially when it must have been obvious that a coin had been plugged...
Each era brings its own scams, I guess.
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