Thank you. @Al Kowsky. I appreciate your appreciation of these pieces. John is a remarkable artist. I have many more commissions planned for the man. I hope he doesn’t get sick of me. LOL.
I think it's time to stop calling these "Hobo" and rename them as something more appropriate as the artists are NOT hobos. Maybe called them "Coin Art" instead. Maybe add "Modern" in front of that.
The ones by Aleksey Saburov are fantastic, and I find it impossible to select the one I like the most. Popeye? Willie? The old man with the bike? This reminds me of a student I had in one of the last intro psych classes I taught. He sat in the back of the room sketching while I lectured. His sketches blew me away, and I traded him an old textbook for one of his pictures, which I gave to my son. He framed it and has it hanging on the wall of his apartment. Last I heard from the former student, he was working for one of the electric car makers in design, of course.
Modern (ca. 2016) hobo carving on 1900 Barber dime, by artist David HJ He. This piece was titled "The Helmsman".
Mountain Man, You raise a good point by labeling the artwork of the newer creations "Hobo Nickels" as not appropriate, since this art form has gone well beyond nickels. Today many other denominations are being used besides nickels. However I don't think abandoning the label "Hobo Nickel" is the right thing to do since it refers to a specific time period when buffalo nickels were in fact carved by hobos living on the train tracks. Maybe the label "Hobo Nickel Art" would be more appropriate for the newer coins.
lordmarcovan, Your dime titled "The Helmsman" is a little gem ! The subject matter is very skillfully done, even to his wind swept hair. Even the micro signature left of the date leaves me in awe . We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this was done on a dime & not a nickel. Dimes are smaller & thinner than nickels. Dimes have a diameter of 17.9 mm & weigh 2.50 gm. (equal to a typical Roman denarius of the early 3rd century), while the nickel has a diameter of 21.2 mm & weight of 5.0 gm. So achieving an image of spacial depth on a dime is much more difficult. This coin is a great example of "Hobo Nickel Art".
Thank you. I thought so too. I've been primarily a collector of 19th century love token carvings in the past. "The Helmsman" was the first modern hobo carving I managed to win at auction. The good modern carvings often sell for much more than their 19th century counterparts! This didn't make sense to me at first, but if you think about it, living artists need and deserve to be paid, while the dead ones don't care so much. David He is a scrimshaw artist, I believe; also producing knife handles and such. Here is another one of his hobo coins. Aleksey Saburov is the modern master whose work I'd most like to own, but his original carvings run four figures, usually.
The W.L. Half is a beautiful piece of metal work ! Adding gold & silver to the composition gives it a touch of class. The coin's theme is reminiscent of St. George slaying the dragon. This coin would appeal to Hobo Nickel collectors & Love Token collectors .
That one is sensational, even for Saburov. I'll bet @dwhiz would bonk somebody over the head to get that one! (Then later at the trial, his defense attorney would show the picture of it, and the jury would be like, "Oh, man, that IS a nice hobo nickel! We get why he did it now. Not guilty!")
That's a lovely token & tribute to Bert Wiegand, the 1st Hobo Nickel artist . If I wasn't an ancient coin "nut" I'd join the OHNS too .