Corum revealed its new Heritage Artisan Coin Watch at Baselworld this year, featuring the coin engraving work of New York-based artist Aleksey Saburov. The Russian engraver has been an avid promoter for the early 20th-century American art form known as “hobo coins” or “hobo nickels” ? in which a coin, often an old buffalo nickel, is carved, chiseled, and reworked into a new artistic form. It emerged before World War I with migrant workers, soldiers, and fledgling artists taking up the craft on the nickel, or the ?poor man’s coin,? and took off during the Depression era as a popular art through that dark time.
Corum Hobo Coin Watch
Today, groups like the 1992-founded Original Hobo Nickel Society have began to help preserve and promote this traditional form of American art, with artists like Saburov developing ? and watch brands like Corum featuring ? the work. This kind of support is nothing new to Corum, as the Swiss brand has a history of coin-dial watches since being established in 1955, first catching wide attention in the luxury market by producing the $20 Gold Double Eagle watch (modern iteration below). Corum Double Eagle Coin Watch
Each of the new ?Hobo Coins,? as the brand has dubbed the watches, will be a unique piece, with the artist producing an undisclosed number of motifs for dials. The work will be micro-engraved on U.S .silver dollars, but just as Saburov?s previous work on 5-cent coins, it will still have been influenced by hi...