Some Pictures Of My Carvings.

Hi Shatsi,

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures...I'll put up some more when I get back from out of town.

Hi Amazon99 and vermontensium,

Thanks...I have carved other coins, half dollars, quarters, silver dollars, a Half Dime and an uncirculated 20 dollar gold piece so far but mostly I like carving nickels. I also do a lot with using gold inlay and setting gems in the nickels, using a color process I developed and nickels with moving parts.
NGILES I forgot to answer the other part of your question, I use gravers to do the carving...they are basically little chisels used for metal. I make my own tools and shape them like I need them out of tool steel.

Have you ever worked on a Shield nickel?

Very, very nice.

Amazing!

Hi All,

Let me try to answer all of the questions and comments in one posting. This may skip around a little bit but you'll figure out the post I'm answering.

Well cheungsta stop by when you get to town, my shop is located inside Nevada Coin and Currency at Silverado Ranch Road and South Maryland Parkway. Most of the carving detail that I do on nickels isn't visable in the pictures so it will be nice to be able to sit down with you in my shop and show you a lot of the nickels I do and point out the different carving aspects of them.

Hi mfry, you're fears are justified. Dates can be changed and altered, mint marks added, 3 legged Buffalo nickels are as difficult to make as finding a slurpee at a 7-11.

From my experience about 70 to 80% of the hobo nickels that I have seen at shows and advertised as original or old nickels are not old at all. Dealers make more money if they advertise and sell them as old nickels.

I've carved nickels to look like the old original nickels, including the old type toning, oxidation and so on and to date not one have been detected by any of the experts that have examined them. The only thing the hobo nickels experts are good at is guessing and most of the time they guess wrong. Getting back to changing dates, I do know of some of the OHNS carvers that change dates on their nickels to make them appear to be carved on earlier nickels than they are.

Hi KinteSmith,

I really wasn't concerned with the price of the gold piece, all I was interested in was carving it. From what I was told, when the coin was sold it went well over the value of the 20.00 gold piece.

I don't collect coins, I only carve them. I've had many talks with Tom Mathews about this. When I first met Tom I told him that I didn't collect coins and he said that he'll change that. So far I've got Tom to start carving and I'm still not a coin collector. I have inherited about 100 pounds of silver coins from my Dad and my uncle but I have no idea what they are other than the silver content. I just grab one and carve and keep looking at the pile not getting any smaller. lol

Coins are only a canvas that I work on. It doesn't really matter to me what the coin is, whether it's U.S. or Foreign although I prefer nickel size coins or smaller to carve on. This art form tends to loose it's magic when used on larger coins, there is something very appealing to me to carve very small intricate details.

very nice