![]() ![]() ![]() Now 70 and undergoing chemotherapy treatment, Del Romines "dropped out of all coins 100 percent" several years ago, he said, "primarily because of my health." ![]() In 1996 Romines' wife, Joyce Ann, updated and republished the book. The godfather of the oddball numismatic specialty, Romines literally wrote the book on "The Hobo Nickel" in 1982, documenting for the first time the original works of "Bo," his teacher Bertram "Bert" Wiegand and myriad other hobo nickel carvers whose given names may never be known. "There were just very few that were actually made after that," Romines told COINage in March.Ī retired metal fabricator in Louisville, Kentucky, Romines considers later carvings "fakes" at worst, and at best something other than "honest-to-goodness hobo nickels." The sole exceptions for Romines are the works of George Washington "Bo" Hughes, a black hobo who started carving Buffalo nickels when they came out in 1913 and kept carving them until late 1981 or early 1982 when he disappeared from a hobo jungle in Florida, never to be seen again. They are little pieces of history to be collected and revered, a brand of folk art that vanished in the 1950s. To Del Romines, hobo nickels are things of the past. ![]() Was the coin exchanged for a meal or shelter? Was it used to bribe a railroad bull into looking the other way? Here is something magical about a Buffalo nickel that has been reworked into a unique piece of art by a hobo with a crude knife or nail punch as he tramped across America in the first half of the 20th Century. ![]()
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