Hobo Nickels

Very nice! I like the copper band on the hat. How did you do that? It adds a whole new dimension to the nickel.

Thanks. They are all carved, meaning that there has been metal removed from the original coin. A good bit of the feathers behing the head and the braid are removed and you just go from there. The one with the copper hat band is a piece of copper wire inlayed into the coin. That is the only inlay I've done so far, but it looks pretty nice.

I'm still learning to do this, and it's been a lot of fun learning about carving coind. The funny thing about hobo nickels is that they look so much better when you see them "live".

Tom

"A Few"? Friends, Mike has carved thousands of hobo nickels. I've only done 15 so far. It has seriously been a great deal of fun meeting Mike and learning to carve nickels. Send Mike an email and join the hobo nickel group. We'd be glad to have you join.

Tom

You may not ever see them unless you get them from someone who carves them. I've been to a zillion coin shops and shows and antique and re-sale shops, and I've never seen one for sale. ebay has them, but most of them are really low quality. Now and then you see a nice one there, but they usually sell for quite a bit when they do. I've only sold one of mine, and kind of wished I hadn't now...

Tom

There are quite a few in Heritage's archives.

Link Removed
Please review forum rules
-GO

Hi Kenny,

I use hand tools to carve. I do know some carvers that use dremal tools to carve and do a fairly good job but to get extreme detail hand tools are the only way to go.
Mike.

What kind of hand tools do you use? This is something that I've been interested in learning to do for quite a while.

Hi echizento,

The designs are carved into the coin by removing the metal at different levels to produce the desired results. I have made nickels where I have added metal to the coin but those were just pieces of the design, the best example would be Skippy, it was a teenager kid from back in the 30's or 40's wearing a propeller beanie and I made the propeller in 14Kt. gold and made it spin. That was just an add on part, there are also techniques of raising metal from the coin. This technique is usually seen in ears, nostrils, hat brims, it's difficult to see the results in a photo unless the coin is taken from many different angles so that the raised metal is visible.


here is a pic of Skippy, the propeller is clearly an added piece to the coin. The other pic are of raised metal carving, you'll notice it most on the ears. One the cowboy looking picture I raised the metal for the hatband 90% to the coin and also did the same thing to the ear, then raised the metal at the bottom of his hair and the top of the collar so that all would stand out from the coin. On most raised metal nickels you usually see the metal raised about a millimeter off the coin at the most..I go to extremes with my carvings and try to put the metal to it's limits before carving. To give you some reference point as to how much the metal is raised, if I put one of my nickels in a regular airtite holder the ear breaks the plastic.

In one of the pictures there is a guy with a curly eyebrow and cookie duster, the ends of the hair on both of those is raised away from the coin so that you can actually look under the hair, yet it's difficult to see in the photo


Image: 10163.jpg
91.96 KB

Image: 92250406.jpg
84.74 KB

Image: 92250554.jpg
23.63 KB

Image: 92250336.jpg
18.32 KB

Hope this answers your question.
Have a good day