What do you consider as modern coins?

I agree. Once they dumped the Indian Head Cent coinage became modern. Honestly, even though post-1909 has the 1916 designs, I don't like how any post-1909 coin with a mintage less than 1 million is instantly mega popular and absurdly priced for it's real rarity. (1909-S VDB, 1916-D Merc)

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Agree. And the way people fight over modern proofs with mintages of 100k or more. I love 19th c proofs with mintages in the hundreds

 

Any coin that sells for under $20 in MS67 but over $20,000 in MS70.

 

I, too, put the era of "modern coins" at 1948 and later, although the path to modern coins can be described in three phases. But by 1948, detail was no longer important, just high mintage which meant dies had to be used for longer periods, resulting in low relief, lack of importance in artistic merit, and emphasis on wear resistance. The designs with the most detail came between the mid 1800s and early 1900s.

I would say that the Barber coinage was the harbinger to the modern era. They were workhorses among coins, and were primarily designed to be circulated rather than appreciated from a design perspective. But coins with great artistic merit still existed. The second phase was the final mintage of the Walking Half which had artistic merit. Finally, in 1965, all circulating coins except for the Kennedy half stopped being minted in silver. Now, coins are just a sad imitation of what they used to be.

 

Well, the country where I live (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Federal Republic of Germany) was founded in 1949. Older German coins were issued by the Deutsches Reich, the Kingdom of Prussia, Bavaria, etc. etc. But I agree, the decisive date will be different for every collector. For me "modern" also has something to do with the technologies used, so I would go back quite a bit. Roughly the past 100-150 years maybe ...

Christian

 

1970 and decimal coins in Britain.

 

All modern coinage to grade is the cheapest .
Thats all that matters to me .
Don't understand why the grading companies charge more for anything else ...

 

Anything after 1836 when they stopped making the dies by hand and began full hubbing and striking in the steam press and not by muscle power (screw press).

 

Maybe, but I didn't make myself clear. I meant the 2009 commem cents. I think those are of a much higher artistic quality than anything else on the recent circulating coinage.

 

Ah, but they're computer-assisted, where's the artistic challenge? These are Etch A Sketch coins.

 

I put it at 1933. I'm not sure why but I think that I read it somewhere early in my life. It is probably a later date now but I'm stuck in the past.

 

Here, in the Old Europe (Italy) we consider "modern" all world coins since 1492 (discovery of America) to 1789 (French Revolution)
After this date, the coins are "contemporary".

petronius

 

1964 and up though anything much after World War II starts negating my interest.

 

I break them down as:

Ancient: Anything from the first coinage to the currency reform of Anastasius I in 498 C.E.

Medieval: Anything from 498 to the fall of Byzantium in 1453.

Modern: 1453 onward.

 

The year 1900 and forward as modern coinage. I have made allowances for Indian Head, Morgan and Barber coins to the end of their series. I now buy only one silver proof set a year from our mint.

 

I would add:
Old: 1453 - 1900
Modern: 1901 - now

 

I go by the design: a Peace Dollar or a Lincoln cent is modern; a walking liberty half is not.

 

Coins made in the "non-silver + non-gold" era is what I consider modern. Basically anything circulating past 1964.

"Fake coins" my dad calls them.

 

Since I spend a fair amount of time with hammered coins, anything not made by a human physically whacking a die seems pretty modern, even horse drawn mints. But "modern" coinage now largely means circulating clad coinage (which some consider tokens more than coins), so I'm also tempted to call money devoid of significant, or any, inherent value "modern." The clad revolution changed just about everything with coinage, its look, feel, economics, etc. The last major sea change that seems to separate our current phase from the previous one looks like clad. But a lot of these words depend on context and point of view.

 

Absolutely. For me the cut off date is 1952, start date for QE2 for non-US.