Through all the terrible decisions that I made with regard to buying silver like a lunatic (thankfully not too much, but still, the naivete of enthusiasm eh ), these are the best buys I've made during the whole "getting into precious metals and coins" phase I went through, and thought I'd share: 1942 Australian Penny 1949 NZ Half Crown 1943 Australian Penny, with hole (this was a test by the artist, trying some things out) 1936 US Nickel I love these, truly works of art and the process with the artist (John Hughey) was a delight. Really a fantastic guy. He's a retired Radiographer, hence his superb knowledge of anatomy/skeletons. Now, let's see yours
John Hughey is an absolute master of the hobo nickel, I haven't yet acquired one of his but hope to soon
I've never seen an Australian coin "hoboified" like this before either (is that even a word?!) Are they regularly available, or were they a one-off?
The Nickel was the only coin that I got "off the shelf" & the others were commissioned. I paid him up front for the Nickel through eBay, and for the rest upon completion prior to him sending them to me. I told him what coins I wanted carved, he bought the coins on eBay and carved them. I paid him cost of coin + his time/effort/expertise. The process took a few weeks, with many emails to and fro discussing details and such.
Great, I've just had a brief search on eBay for similar items - what a field! It's seldom that we see any coins and notes used in art, I can see me picking a few of these up.
John did an Australian 2 cent coin for me a few years back after I contacted him for one of his Indian Skull nickels. Really nice work. We were talking about getting a Gold coin done but it would probably be charged GST on the way to Australia.