The "Devil Hobo" is a carved coin, not a mint product — a form of folk art known as a hobo nickel, though the practice extended to larger silver dollars, which offered more surface area for the carver's tool. Morgan dollars were a favored blank for this work, their high-relief fields giving amateur and professional carvers alike enough metal depth to reshape a portrait into something entirely their own. The composition listed here almost certainly reflects a later restrike or novelty reproduction; genuine 1899 Morgan dollars are 90% silver.
The "Devil Hobo" is a carved coin, not a mint product — a form of folk art known as a hobo nickel, though the practice extended to larger silver dollars, which offered more surface area for the carver's tool. Morgan dollars were a favored blank for this work, their high-relief fields giving amateur and professional carvers alike enough metal depth to reshape a portrait into something entirely their own. The composition listed here almost certainly reflects a later restrike or novelty reproduction; genuine 1899 Morgan dollars are 90% silver.