May 06, 2008

• *once had his Halloween privileges revoked for trying to modify a coin with a subway car wheel*
• very cool post, GramMa, )))! much nicer than those wooden ones.
• And if you're sweet, then you'll grow rotten; Your pretty heart covered over with soot. And if for once you're gay, And devil-may-careless, and oh, so hot... I know you've got That nickel under your foot. - The Nickel Under The Foot
• Brecht had only just completed his parable, The Roundheads and the Pointedheads, an indictment of Hitler's racist rise to power that began as an adaptation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, blended with allusions to Kleist, Swift, and Zola, and 14 songs with music by Hanns Eisler, including, most memorably, "Nannas Lied," also a song of a prostitute. Every recording of "Nannas Lied" I have credits the music to Weill. Are there two settings?
• This would suggest that the Eisler version came first.
• I vote for the lucky MONKEY coin! (Second row, column four of your "This makes five")
• Amazing. Recarving a coin like this (possibly with nothing more than a knife) must have been quite a job. I wonder if there are hundreds of failed hobo nickels where the process went wrong and was abandoned?
• Fantastic post, GramMa! You have brought out the old nerd in myself (I used to subscribe to COINage magazine back in the days). Growing up in South Dakota, I was always taken with the "ways" of the hobos. My town even had a silly "Hobo Days" festival each year. I remember meeting a so-called hobo one day. he came lumbering out of a junkyard on the side of town, and was "drunk-as-a-skunk". He had several teeth missing, but could whistle the sweetest tune. He offered a handshake, and was truly kind. Next year, there was a "hobo murder" under a train bridge. Two hobos got in an argument over money owed, and one pulled a knife on the other... and I always wondered if it was the one that I had met (as I never saw him again). As much as I knew of hobos, I never heard of, or saw, a hobo nickel before. Wow, completely fascinating! They're quite astonishing... *was disciplined more than once by the Burlington Northern "rail cops" for modifying coins on the rails*
• Hey, this is really neat! I had no idea this art form even existed. I like the one with the comb-over towards the bottom left of the 4th link. I also like the monkey. [from the first link]Money may be the root of all evil... The quote is actually "... the love of money is the root of all evil." Coin and currency has less to do with it. This never used to bother me until I read Atlas Shrugged, parts of which consisted of long screeds arguing against this made up quote.
• Marvelous post! Some beautiful and fun work here. I've used files to cut out old silver coins before which is aggravating enough; getting such dimensionality out of a slim sliver of metal seems nothing short of miraculous. Fascinating, BlueHorse. Such artwork will get tons tougher if we transition to steel coins. Kudos also to those endeavoring to keep the art form alive.
• Spanish shopkeeper finds Homer Simpson euro coin.
• D'ough!