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" The rise and fall of the trillion-dollar coin wasn&amp;#039;t the only weird numismatic news this month. It was said that the coin, a crafty re-stocking of the Treasury to escape the debt-ceiling crisis, would have been minted using platinum. And that&amp;#039;s just as well, since the U.S. Mint has run out of silver. To be precise, it has run out of 2013 American Eagle Silver Bullion coins, having sold more than 6 million silver coins already this year. Demand for silver and gold coins has been unexpectedly high, fanned, no doubt, by the confluence of the Mayan apocalypse, Obama&amp;#039;s re-election, and the constant pulse of right-wing-radio &amp;quot;Buy Gold&amp;quot; advertisements. But don&amp;#039;t worry, a new stock of silver coins will be ready on January 28. Meanwhile, you&amp;#039;d do well to get your hands on a nickel of a specific kind. At a January 12 rare coin auction, a bidder paid $22,000 (plus a ten-percent buyer&amp;#039;s fee) for a 1939 hobo nickel. Hobo nickels are altered by engravers who replace the mint&amp;#039;s image with one of their own. The Buffalo nickel, which was introduced in 1913, is the nickel of choice, since the large Indian head is ripe for manipulation and fine detail. The nickel that was purchased at auction was engraved by George Washington &amp;quot;Bo&amp;quot; Hughes, and featured a bearded man on one side and a boxcar on the other. It was the highest price ever paid for a hobo nickel. Our neighbors to the north are wishing Hughes could work his talents on Canada&amp;#039;s new $20 bill. Canadian botanists are as livid as only Canadian botanists can be because the bill features an invasive Norway maple leaf and not any of Canada&amp;#039;s indigenous species. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a species that&amp;#039;s invasive in Eastern Canada and is displacing some of our native species, and it&amp;#039;s probably not an appropriate species to be putting on our native currency,&amp;quot; fumed Canadian botanist Sean Blaney to CBC News. A spokesperson for the Bank of Canada has offered a weaselly explanation, saying the design combines a blend of Canadian species. Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a18212/trillion-dollar-hobo-nickel-14993892/?click=news>