Hobo nickels

April 12, 2002 7:42 AM

Hobo nickels [cache] were once carved by yesterday’s homeless for for meals, a place to sleep, a ride or other favors. Now, we have master engravers like Arthur Hutchison, Sam Alfono and Steven Adams.
posted by pedantic (7 comments total)

Didn't want to see the thread stay empty. Nice links - I've collected coins, but not Indian Heads particularly, and I didn't know Hobo nickels were still being carved. The patience required to do this sort of detailed, inticrate work is amazing.
posted by yhbc at 10:58 AM on April 12, 2002

Good form, by the way, giving the cache as well as the low-bandwidth page. Saves somebody the trouble of posting it for late viewers.

Unfortunately, the images on the cache don't load. Oh well.
posted by me3dia at 11:39 AM on April 12, 2002

Yeah, I'd love to see the images of original hobo coins on that geocities page. The current engravers pages were interesting though, especially steven adams. really impressive.
posted by mdn at 11:46 AM on April 12, 2002

I attended an ANA summer conference where they auctioned off a few hobo nickels. There was an audible gasp from the crowd when they were announced. If I remember correctly they had original ones (done by real hobos) as well as a few modern ones. Some of them were masterfully done. I don't remember how much they went for though. Does anyone know how much they cost? I couldn't find pricing on the individual engraver sites.
posted by jaden at 12:15 PM on April 12, 2002

Tucked away on Arthur's site, Sam Alfonso's work has sold on Ebay from several hundred dollars to over $800. He's also done some gold inlay work. Very pretty. yhbc, I half hoped this post would have remained commentless. It would've been fun to have my 15 minutes of fame as a MeFi poster with no comments. Not even haiku about pancakes!
posted by pedantic at 1:31 PM on April 12, 2002

great link! thanks, pedantic. more please.
posted by mlang at 1:32 PM on April 12, 2002

neat! thanks!
posted by Hackworth at 11:10 PM on April 12, 2002