Got this at the YN auction a couple of weeks ago, just arrived today. I bid on many lots but they went for more than I wanted to spend. (YN dollars, not real money) Surprisingly, I was the only bidder for this lot and it’s my first hobo nickel. They also sent a blank zinc cent planchet just for fun. Feel free to post any hobo nickels that you have.
Cool. Hobo-carving coins can be habit forming. The three-cent chicken here is a 19th century love token work. The others are by modern "hobo" carvers.
Those are all pretty cool. That's a great pick up @Matthew Kruse ! FFIVN bought a hobo nickel at the last Baltimore Whitman show we went to. He wanted one that was original but the ones we found were really expensive. Finally he found one that he could afford and the lady even gave him a $10 discount
The rooster three cent piece is especially cool. I have a silver dime love token, although I classify hobo nickels and love tokens separately.
I stopped collecting modern coins when I as close to FFIVN's age but before then I really wanted a hobo nickel. At that time there was a strong preference shown for coins carved by actual hobos before it became a cottage industry for craft show artists whose skills were far better than hobos using nails as tools but whose 'cool' was close to non existent. This coin looks like it has a chance of being 'original' but I never was clear on exactly how you could tell the 'good' from the later rip-offs of the idea. How could we be sure a hobo was a hobo? Who has a hobo carved on a high grade three legged or other nickel worth too much for a modern artist to utilize in this way?
We both agree with the preferred "pedigree" of a hobo nickel being that of an actual hobo. Tough to actually know for sure if that is the case or not. At least with FFIVN's nickel, it has the look of one that is possibly original. It was far less expensive than some of the ones we looked at that were done by known hobo nickel artists. I think this one was $30 (After his $10 discount) whereas some of the others we saw were in the multiple hundreds of dollars. There was also a guy who was selling "hobo nickels" that were machine engraved using a computer assisted lathe or whatever. They were ~$10 a piece but mass-produced and didn't have the "feel" of a real hobo nickel.
