The American West was never just what history books told — it was quieter, stranger, and far more haunted. Nickel Souls: Engraved Lives from the Forgotten West gathers six full volumes of spectral remembrance, reimagining the Buffalo Nickel as a vessel of memory. Every skull-carved portrait within this collection tells a story left behind: Native warriors who never vanished, brothel queens who reigned in lace and smoke, cowboys and cowgirls who became dust and dusk, gamblers still clutching phantom hands, and Indigenous women whose presence shaped the land.
This collection contains over 180 original black-and-white engravings across six themed volumes, each accompanied by poetic reflections and historical meditations. The hobo nickel tradition — born from rebellion and survival — is honored and expanded here in bold lines and hollow gazes. These coins do not simply mark death. They illuminate lives that refused to be forgotten. For those who see beauty in bone, story in silence, and art in resistance, Nickel Souls is a ceremonial reckoning carved in metal, myth, and memory.
