wooden nickel

noun4

1. •
   A wooden token that is manufactured and distributed by a particular business as an advertising gimmick or which can be exchanged for goods, many of which have now become collector's items.

   • Your Rivermont wooden nickel has tremendous purchasing power! Every customer on our mailing list has received a Rivermont wooden nickel. — 1960
2. •
   A worthless replica of a coin, usually intended to defraud.

   • Don't take any wooden nickels warned innocents going abroad to steer clear of con artists. — 2008
3. •
   (figurative) Something that purports to be something other than it actually is, especially that purports to be more valuable than it actually is.

   • Another wooden nickel would be a husband returning totally on his terms, where his terms are that you do not deal with the relationship. — 1993
4. •
   (US) The smallest amount of money imaginable.

   • Renounce all personal pleasures and personal profit. It is all just pennies—or, as my young friend Julia would say, it's a wooden nickel. — 1981