Carved Kennedy Half Dollars/“Turkeys” Researched
−by Art “Cinco de Arturo” DelFavero, RM522 and Verne “V-Dubya” Walrafen, HLM620
On the subject of giving this unknown coin carver a “nickname”: We decided to assign a “handle” (so that we have something to use for discussion purposes) but not a nickname... reserving nicknames for those carvers whom we can identify as having done nickels. We considered “Camelot”, “Merlin”, and “Turkey”, among others, for various obscure reasons. Finally it came down to the fact that this artist was carving busts of politicians(turkeys) on “turkeys” that settled the matter.
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John Fitzgerald Kennedy 50¢
| Lot#47 • Richard Milhous Nixon #1
| Richard Milhous Nixon #2 Casting
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Lot#48 • Spiro Theodore Agnew
| Lot#132 • Ronald Wilson Reagan
| Lot#133 • George Herbert Walker Bush
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It was obvious right out of the gate that “Turkey” had a real sense of humor in addition to considerable skill in their trade. Also... we are not the first collectors to make special note of these works of art. Bill Fivaz showed the Nixon #1 and Agnew carvings in I Am Not A Crook!, on p.4 of the Spring 1999 BoTales, and Steve Alpert showed both the Nixon #1 and Bush, Sr. carvings on p.108 of the 2001 Hobo Nickel Guidebook. All four... the Nixon #1, Agnew, Reagan, and Bush, Sr. carvings were sold at the 2001 OHNS FUN Auction for $300, $210, $500 and $250.
One of my favorite “tongue-in-cheek” sayings has always been... “I told you all that so that I could tell you this!” ...and then I trot out whatever it was that I wanted to pontificate upon in the first place, usually with a big grin on my face if I think it won't get me punched, slapped, shunned or otherwise castigated.
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Anyway, here goes... The specimen shown boxed above (on the upper right), titled “Richard Milhous Nixon #2 Casting”, was recently offered by an eBay seller who noted that it appeared to be carved on a Kennedy half but that the host coin was thinner and a millimeter smaller than a genuine half dollar. I had seen this carver somewhere and at first blush I thought it might have been done by Bill Jameson. A quick check showed me two VERY similar Nixon nickels done by Bill but no half dollars... so I snapped it up for further study.
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Next I spent several hours pouring over Auction Catalogs #10 through #18 to no avail. So I called our Archivist “Cinco” and gave him the very briefest of descriptions of what I was looking for. He says... “Oh yeah! Those are in Auction Catalog #9.” SIGH! Obviously I should've started with him in the first place but I didn't want to be a nuisance. While waiting for my acquisition to arrive I asked Cinco to send me copies of the Authentication (called “Quality Designation” now) forms to see what our Authenticators
(called “Examiners” now) had to say about these four carvings. Steve Alpert ended up with a question:
| Check out these historic forms for yourself here: |
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“Who made these great pieces, and did the artist carve more than one specimen of each president?”
How about that? The seller was a bit off... the casting is only 0.6mm smaller than a genuine 50¢, which is just 2%. Whoever made this casting did a really GREAT job... it even rings like a real coin. Even better is the fact that this casting is NOT of the carving sold in 2001 but of a truant carving of Nixon that we have never documented previously.
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We have now learned that this carver did carve more than one Nixon carving. Shown here are close-ups of precisely the same area of both the "eyes closed" carving (←) sold in 2001 and the "eyes open" casting (→) just now acquired in 2010. What we don't know is why a casting was made of the truant Nixon carving... perhaps the original was sent as a gift to a museum or to Tricky Dick himself and the carver kept a cast copy for themselves. That is a pretty common thing for an engraver to do when carving the bust of a public figure.
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