A happy Caturday morning to all da Newdists!
Today we celebrate a Diary Mongoose:
A warm Caturday welcome!
Grab a cup of coffee or tea, something to eat, and please join us.
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All are welcome to join the fun, the silliness, the conversations. If you don’t know...just ask! Some things really do require a bit of explanation.
There will be a few surprises along the way, all good ones, we hope.
We are here to keep building the Daily Kos Community.
We post Mon-Sun at 10:30 a.m. Eastern. On Sunday we go to the C!U!A! posting to show support for all the work being done to promote Democratic candidates/causes. Please to join us there, as well.
Pie fights will be met with outrageous ridicule and insults. Trolls will be incinerated and served at the next group BBQ. As briquettes.
The artistry of carved coins has an old history. They were once known as “hobo nickels.”
What is a hobo nickel?
The hobo nickel is a sculptural art form involving the creative modification of small-denomination coins, essentially resulting in miniature bas reliefs. The US nickel coin was favored because of its size, thickness and relative softness. However, the term hobo nickel is generic, as carvings have been made from many different denominations.
Due to its low cost and portability, this medium was particularly popular among hobos, hence the name.
Russian artist Roman Booteen is one of the modern fabricators of such coins, and he also uses larger coins.
Here’s a link to a viddie in his Facebook which explains how he got the above results from this:
Roman Booteen:
[...] is a modern master in the art of the hobo nickel—a term used to describe the 18th century sculptural art form of hand-engraving coins. His latest extraordinary piece—titled Gold Bug—was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The Gold Bug. It features a central beetle motif with a tailored mechanism that allows its wings to open and close, revealing and concealing its 22K gold body.
Carved from two Morgan dollar coins from 1921 and a five dollar gold coin from 2015, the mechanism can be used by pushing a “button” on the coin’s top edge. Framed by elaborate florals, ribbons, and skulls, the Latin script roughly translates to: “The most expensive should be something that was sought longer and intensively than others.” Booteen explains that the coin is a “symbol of treasure hunting,” which is the theme in Poe’s story. The letter “L” on the bug’s body means “50” in Latin, which signifies Booten’s 50th coin carving.
There’s another finished coin —
Same coin when it was not quite that finished —
Another Facebook video of how the above coin was finished.
Another coin —
And a viddie —
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New Day Cafe Open Thread.
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