What is a Hobo Nickel? Early Up-cycling.
I would like to
shift gears now. I originally started this blog to explore the question of
creativity and what it means to be creative. There are as many ways to
make art as there are to be an artist. One unique creative endeavor which has
recently risen to my attention is a little thing called a nickel. The Hobo
Nickel to be precise. What is a hobo nickel?
I am glad you
asked. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo_nickel) The hobo
nickel is a sculptural art form involving
the creative modification of small-denomination coins, essentially
resulting in miniature bas reliefs.
But as I have some friends who collect and carve these pieces I have come to
find that it is a culture and to some an “addiction” all its own.
Altering coins is a something that dates back centuries but it wasn’t until the minting of the 1913 Indian Head or “Buffalo Nickel” that the practice took on artform and collectability status. With it’s thicker profile and beefier minted image of the buffalo on the back and the large profile of the man on the front. The new coin provided a lot of material to work with for the bourgeoning number of sculptors. The US mint stopped striking the Buffalo Nickel in 1938 ending the era, but not the artform. Something on the order of 200,000 Hobo Nickels are thought to have been created between 1913 and the 1980s with about 100,000 more created since then.
The practice began as I way to pledge troth, or celebrate an
engagement. But it became an inexpensive way to mark ones passage. By selling
or trading the sculpted coin the artist left behind a piece of himself. This
up-cycling of the 5 cent piece became a useful technique for the throngs of
jobless during the Great Depression.
If you do a little digging you will no doubt find out about Bertram “Bert”
Wiegand, who signed his work but removing the Li and y from the Liberty. Also
his protégé George Washington “Bo” Huges, who carved right up until the early
80s. But this post is more about the creative practice rather than the creative
individuals.
Mind you bas-relief
sculpture on the face of a coin is not an easy task requiring painstaking
attention to detail and specialized tools. So in an effort to explain I
have created my first INFOGRAPHIC Wheee!
Now to illustrate just how much of a committed subculture there is
for these coins, both sculpting and collecting here is a trailer for a
documentary you might be interested in.
I must say it is a unique art form requiring a steady hand and a
strong commitment. Find out more at http://www.hobonickels.org/ and on
their Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/theoriginalhobonickelsociety/?fref=ts
Also I would love to hear from some of my readers about the
Infographic please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
There is also a distinction in the Hobo nickel community, between hobo nickels and 'love tokens', there is a large area of overlap between the two, but they each have their own subculture and fans. http://lovetokensociety.com/
ReplyDeleteI recently acquired several of the latter style, one of my favorite coins is a 1927 Buffalo Nickel recently carved and sold by Tom Mahr. It's a 'Love Token' style coin, a fantastically detailed tiny engraving of the Robot and City design from Fritz Lang's 1927 movie Metropolis that really has to be held in the hand and looked at with magnification to fully appreciate.
http://is.gd/metropolis_1927nickel
I also acquired two coins with my own face carved onto them, by the current artist "Benson" -- one a 1927 US five-cent coin* and the other a British 50 New Pence coin, each coin had a Head of State removed to allow for carving an image of me taken from my facebook profile picture. It's quite flattering to have one's face on a coin, even if with a case of 'bedhead'.
http://is.gd/Glenn_50NP_coin
As an artist, one of the best ways to understand the artform is to try one, find a coin and a sharp implement and see for yourself why so many artists spend all their free time "refacing" coins.
Really nicely carved coins regularly sell for hundreds of dollars, creeping into the thousands for items with known provenance and significance.
Even so it is possible to buy one right now today, direct from established artists -- a coin that will hold its value and appreciate with time, in the thirty to sixty dollar range.
As the title to an upcoming Hobo Nickel movie suggests, it could all start with "A NICKEL AND A NAIL"
*It has been said that the buffalo nickel might be more accurately called the copper bison -- the coin is more copper than nickel and the North American Buffalo is actually 2 subspecies, (both called bison bison -- the Plains Bison (bison bison bison) and the larger Wood Bison (bison bison athabascae).
Thanks Glenn
ReplyDeleteHave you taken to carving these things for yourself or are you just a fan?