05 February 2013

Hobo Nickels

During my search for this weeks article, I stumbled across this little gem of a blog about hobo nickels: http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/hobonickels.php 
The post goes into detail about the origins of the hobo nickel, which were little pieces of artwork carved out into the infamous buffalo nickel by vagabonds during the Great Depression. The coin was minted from 1913-1938, and provided a way for hobos to earn a little bit extra money by carving quite intricate designs on the faces of these coins. The designs were quite extensive given that the artist was often using only a knife or another piece of metal to etch their ideas into the nickels. 
An interesting point was brought up in the post as well. As you may already know, our current US currency holds little to no 'actual value,' meaning that our money is simply recognized as having value, but in reality it isn't worth the value it represents. The author brought up the idea that these hobos were able to take a theoretically worthless piece of metal and add actual value to it in the form of art. These coins nowadays sell at auction for thousands of dollars, and provide a neat look into the life of a traveling worker during the Depression.
Here are some pictures of the nickels too :)    

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