Hobo nickel
sculptural art form
The hobo nickel is a sculptural art form involving the creative modification of small-denomination coins, resulting in miniature bas reliefs. The United States nickel coin was favored because of its size, thickness, and softness; but the term hobo nickel is generic, carvings having been made from many denominations. Because of its low cost and its portability, this medium was particularly popular among hobos, hence the name.
Early altered coins (1750s–1913)
The altering of coins dates from the 18th century or earlier. Beginning in the 1850s, the most common form of coin alteration was the "potty coin", engraved on United States Seated Liberty coinage (half dime through trade dollar) and modifying Liberty into a figure sitting on a chamber pot. This period was also the heyday of the love token, which was made by machine-smoothing a coin (usually a silver one, such as a Morgan dollar) on one or both sides, then engraving it with initials, monograms, names, scenes, etc., often with an ornate border. Hundreds of thousands of coins were altered in this manner. They were often mounted on pins or incorporated into bracelets and necklaces. The love-token fad waned in the early 20th century; love tokens engraved on buffalo nickels are rare.
During this period, hobo-style coin alteration also occurred outside the United States, primarily in Britain, France, and South Africa.
The public source identifies “Hobo nickel” as sculptural art form. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hobo, nickel and sculptural.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hobo nickel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.