Coins in the Smithsonian



The Gallary of Numismatics - Vault door entrance to the exhibit.	The Value of Money - Exploring History, Culture and Innovation through objects from The National Numismatic Collection.


The exhibit. The coins are displayed under the Art of Money heads in the glass display case.	My coins are numbers 8 and 10. However they have me listed in the information sign as number 8 and 9.



Another view of the coins under the Art of Money heads in the display case.	Another view of the exhibit.

Since the above photos were taken I believe the "heads" are no longer above the coins and I think the coins were assigned new numbers also.

August of 2021 my son visited the Smithsonian and sent me some photos of the latest display

The Vault entrance hasn't changed any for obvious reason.
The coins were renumbered to #7 and #8 from the previous display. The above numbering error has been corrected on the display.
Here is the display as it appears in Aug of 2021. The large money heads are gone and there is some new money origami along with some money jewelry. Also a large blown up photo of the skull coin is now part of the display.
Another shot of the coin display as it appears in August of 2021
My son also found this "The Value of Money" book by Ellen R. Feingold in the gift shop.
The Skull coin is in "The Value of Money" book.

So when I donated the two Hobo Nickels to the Smithsonian, I was in a Hobo Nickel class offered by the ANA in Colorado Springs in 2013. The Smithsonian had some money in their budget so they sent some employees to some classes at the ANA. One of the curators happened to be in the Hobo Nickel class that I was in. I had some of my coins with me and showed them. The curator asked if I had ever considered donating any to the Smithsonian. She told me that they would probably never be on display but would be in the archives, which I thought was pretty cool so I gave her the above two coins. Later on in November of 2015 I got word that the coins would be going on permanent display.

I was probably only about a year into my coin carving endeavor when I took the first class. Looking back I can say the skull coin is probably one of the worst skull carvings in the history of coin carving. It's not even complete, I didn't finish the neck on this one for some reason. Even the "Hobo Hitchhiker" is incomplete. If you look at the hitchhiker coin, you'll see the antique car and the hobo's thumb requesting a ride and to the right of the thumb is a 'mile marker'. At the time I only had rotary tools and hadn't acquired my air graver yet so I didn't have the proper tools to add the mile marker text to the coin. So, there's a little background on the two Smithsonian coins.