This thing just sold for $500

Sooo.... whose good at carving and wants to go into business together?...........

https://www.ebay.com/itm/262842745814

 

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@Camreno

I believe there are a couple of the hobo nickel carvers that pop in here from time to time. Their work is phenomenal and time-consuming. I've seen some of their specimens go for 4-figures in some auctions.

Chris

 

Impressive work! I like the 3D effect.

 

It is insanely impressive work

 

Take a look at these.........

https://www.bing.com/images/search?...ckel+images&qpvt=hobo+nickel+images&FORM=IGRE

Chris

 

Very cool. If it looks as good in hand as it does in the pictures, I'm not at all surprised by the final price.

 

These folks are very talented. I buy train/railroad related hobo's.

 

That's what I'd call an impressive "coin collection". PRICELESS!!

JMHO

 

Could someone explain the point of these? While I had to admit there is a lot of skill all I really see if a defaced coin, and even that is a stretch for some of them. It would easier to make a cast mass produce them instead them going for prices like that. For that sort of money I can buy an uncirculated 19th century gold coin.

 

The massive unemployment associated with the Great Depression forced many of the homeless people to take to the rails in search of work. Homeless camps were often established near the railroad tracks and to pass the time the transients occupied their time by carving. Hobo nickels marked this period in our history just like scrimshaw did for the whalers of the 18th & 19th centuries.

Chris

 

How would you know a real hobo nickle from a modern

 

I know about their association with the depression. But these are modern ones. That's what gets me about the price.

 

Hobo Nickels are an art form, like oil painting or sculpture. If you don't think a Hobo Nickel has value, then you don't understand art.

 

Try carving one for yourself. After you've screwed up countless coins and spent hundreds of hours trying to perfect the process, then maybe you won't think so little of them.

Chris

 

If it is spelled "nickle" instead of "nickel", then it is a fake.

Chris

 

I guess it's the same point as buying an original artwork instead of a mass-produced print of one of the masters. For the same price, I could get a really nice pristine canvas.

 

I'm just amazed how anyone can carve one of those. That coming, of course, from a guy who can't draw a straight line with a ruler.

 

The example given in the OP, if indeed done by hand, is artistically light years ahead of, say, a certain individual whose greatest fame comes from the use of modern technology to exactly copy the work of more talented others. Considering the amount of work and genuine talent involved in the hand creation, the price of the former is a steal compared to the talentless latter.

 

He seems to only do skulls

 

But the coins shown and linked are not hobo nickels, they are modern engraved art.

They are Art and people will pay for Art that moves them. Trying to justify what someone will pay for something is futile. Why do collectors pay hundreds of dollars for a 1909 VDB cent just because it has an S under the date? The them it's important and valuable. To a non-collector "It's just a penny."

A lot of "artists" seem to have some kind of hangup over skulls. So much so that I consider someone with a "skull fixation" to be a second rate artist.