Introducing Cool Breeze


By Arturo DelFavero RM522, Chris Dempsey, LM 64 and Ralph Winter HLM37

In March I was fortunate to win a nice standard hobo nickel on eBay, and though familiar I just couldn't put my finger on where I had seen similar examples. That being the case, an archival search seemed to be the next step. After some hours I came up with two close, but non-definitive matches, that loosely tied all three coins together. Two days later Chris Dempsey emailed two more examples that tightened things up. At this point we had five matches, and one more to be found after a jaunt through the BoTales "Three's A Match" section.

Though plain in appearance "Cool Breeze" exhibits accent lines that make me think of cartoon illustrations of either somebody moving fast or wind blowing by a character. Back in 2014 our editor Ralph Winter sent out e-mails showing three of these coins, and at that point we could not form a consensus. Fate and a "Cool Breeze" sent three more our way to blow us over and seal the deal!

Click to view enlargment. Click to view enlargment. Click to view enlargment. Click to view enlargment. Click to view enlargment. Click to view enlargment.

The carving characteristics for "Cool Breeze" are as follows:

  1. Slightly curved brim derby hat with separated breezy accent lines.
  2. No hat band on any example.
  3. LIBERTY remains though cut through by the end of brim on three examples.
  4. C-shaped ears some with more definition.
  5. Pin point stippled head and facial hair.
  6. All have no hair directly below the ear
  7. Minor alterations to the profile and some eyes dotted.
  8. Simple collars with a V-shaped wedge at front on five examples.
  9. Various accent lines below the head on collar and shoulder area
  10. Nice clean fields on all but one example.