Are Modern US Coin Designs "Weak"?

Maybe not a sacrificial offering, but rather than send our young men & women off to battle, I’m all for FORCING the politicians into the ring to battle to the death. Think of it, we develop the strongest to be our elected officials and they can use state of the art weapons in the ring, or maybe not, just let them club themselves to death. Think of the ratings the broadcasts would get.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

That's is the law, only 2 per year - changed it after 1996, when commem offerings were out of control. But, the mint/congress found numerous other ways to separate us from our money.

 

They are subject to the hyper-effective at nothing US congress. I do not for one minute think there are many people working for the US mint that likes cranking out this spaghetti haired, low relief garbage. They are doing their job. They are having to cut costs - which means poor designs, low relief etc - which are an added expense.

The congress is the crux of the problem. They cannot accomplish anything, let alone solve the problems with American coinage.

 

Wouldn't have a lot of conflict in the world if we sent our leaders to be the head of the battle columns me thinks.

 

And giving us nothing to show for it. One thing, don't blame the mint, they are subject to the hyper-effective over-accomplishing congress.

 

The reason that ancient coins were made in high relief was one because the rulers could make the workers , who were almost slaves , do tedious work all day combined with the fact that they didn't have to make millions of coins . Also though I love some ancient coins some are extraordinarily beautiful and some are but ugly . Guess beauty is in the eyes of the beholder . But I do agree as a whole the greater the relief the better looking the coin .

 

Regarding the original question of the thread, "Are modern US coin designs weak?" Being a modern collector I think I'll take a stand and play devil's advocate and argue for the designs.

Many of the arguments presented regard metal content, the choice of political figure detailed on the obverse instead of liberty, or other such complaints, but the fact remains that the art on the coin is art. Taking the many examples of politicians depicted on the coins for the most part they are well representative of the people they are supposed to depict. Regardless of their contribution to the country or political affiliation I see them paralleling busts or paintings. I like to see a strong jaw line and realistic eyes. Even Franklin's slightly overweight features through the chin can be appreciated through how he was represented on the half. Taking only the ability of the artist/designer of the obverse of the coin and how well that particular person is represented through metal, I think the modern designs are fairly realistic compared to the actual historic figures.

I will say the same thing for the obverse. Many have mentioned prior that they miss the conceptual and symbolic representation of Liberty on our coinage. I argue the figure is still there, but that symbol has changed to a more modern eagle. Sac dollars had one of the best eagles representing liberty. Kennedy half, Washington quarter, Ike dollar all had eagles in various forms of flight in different forms of environment. The concept of liberty is there, it just grew to be seen as an eagle instead of a woman, or in case of Prez dollars, the actual Statue of Liberty. There are also other forms of symbolism on the reverse such as in the dime, the shield or wheat ears in the cent, or even a buffalo on a nickel. These reverses leave much to admire for modern collectors. Furthermore on the topic of reverses, many individuals are in favor of the new America the Beautiful coinage simply because the reverses are so artistic...in no way weak.

Now, just like all things I do find some ways in which the modern US coinage design is weak. I do not like the weak strikes. I believe someone already mentioned the 1960's show much better obverse depictions compared to the newly minted cents. I loathe the spaghetti hair Washingtons and there are some which are not pleasant for me to look at such at the SBA dollars or reverses featuring monuments. Still, overall I think the modern coin is being grossly overlooked from an artistic standpoint.

 

Compared to some offerings this is not really a bad idea.

But this is a really great idea. The Austrian bi-metal coins look cool, and have interesting designs. I think we did this a total of one time in the past?

http://www.coin-database.com/series/austria-silver-niobium-25-euro-coins-25-euro.html