Hobo nickel collector Candace Kagin announced in the Spring 2025 issue of Bo Tales — official journal of the Original Hobo Nickel Society — that she plans to liquidate her more than 600-piece hobo nickel collection in a series of public auctions to be held in 2025 and 2026 by Stack’s Bowers Galleries.

The first session will be held in August in Oklahoma City in conjunction with the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money there.

Hobo nickels are numismatic pieces of art that begin with a struck Indian Head 5-cent coin, into which the artist carves a new design or moves metal to alter the existing design into a new design, using carving tools or even something as simple as a nail.

Kagin’s collection consists of classic and modern hobo nickels, starting with 5-cent coins dated 1913 through the end of the coin series in 1938.

Kagin has been collecting hobo nickels for more than two decades after getting hooked while attending her first OHNS auction in January 2004 at the Florida United Numismatists convention in Orlando.

In 2012, Kagin added the more than 200-piece hobo nickel collection of Larry Frost, pushing her own holdings to more than 600 pieces.

Kagin focused her early collecting attention on hobo nickels illustrating women or made by women.

Some of the rarer individual carvings cost thousands of dollars to acquire and are anticipated to realize considerably more than  their purchase price when they cross the auction block.

Among pieces to be offered in the August auction are works  pedigreed to recognized hobo artists Bertrand “Bert” Wiegand and his protégé and often traveling companion, George Washington “Bo” Hughes.”

Both men traveled the country for years aboard freight trains on which they hitched rides, and they often executed their art pieces while traveling,  to exchange for a meal or a safe place to sleep.

In his 1982 reference Hobo Nickels, author Delma K. Romines explains that Weigand carved his hobo nickels from 1913 through 1949. Wiegand often signed his work by removing the LI and Y from the inscribed LIBERTY, leaving just BERT. Sometimes Wiegand would carve the date into one of his works.

Bo began employing his carving skills circa 1915, frequently signing his work with GH, GWH or George H. At the time of Romines’ book publication, only one hobo nickel executed by Hughes was known to have been signed as BO.

Each hobo nickel carver’s work is often identifiable by their differentiated styles, which longtime collectors can easily discern.

Wiegand, according to Romines, was last publicly seen in 1949 in Florida. Hughes is known to have executed superior carvings until the year 1957, when he suffered an injury to his left hand, resulting in paralysis and modifications to his carving style.

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