Ugliest U.S. Coin?????

I'm going with the V-nickel.

 

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Doesn’t surprise me to see another Barber design make this list. The guy had no imagination OR much natural talent it would seem.

 

Barber was a very pompous entitled dude. Roosevelt had enough of him, thus the renaissance of US coin designs.

 

I’ve read some about C.E. Barber. Don’t respect people like him. Daddy got a highly coveted assistant to the head engraver job for junior. Then junior gets Daddies job when he dies. Age old story of less than qualified family members getting the premium jobs just because they are family.

 

What exactly about his work indicates he didn’t have the skill to do it

 

What says he did? Two can play your game. It’s my opinion from what I’ve read that he was not the best choice but nepotism won the day.

 

His work proves he did

 

Okay if you like Barber coins you’ll have no competition from me buying them up. Just think if Morgan would have been appointed instead of C.E. Barber In 1879. Man our coinage would have rocked.

 

Good grief, has the reaction against political correctness gone so far that we can’t even stick up for ugly people any more? I didn’t see any “political statement” here, just a minority objecting to the evaluation of political figures according to their looks. Which is a dumb way to evaluate political figures.

Whether we should even have real people on coins, with the inevitable attendant partisanship, is an entirely different question. Like many others I’m all for a return to a symbolic female Liberty, and the more she looks like my first girlfriend, the better.

 

I hope she looks like my first girl friend also.

 

Barber did get it right once in awhile. The pan pac half is a beautiful coin though he collaborated with Morgan

 

I'd find this line of argument a lot more convincing if these "aesthetic" observations reliably called out the Wisconsin and Wyoming state quarters for their designs, and did not reliably call out Susan B. Anthony and Eunice Shriver for their personal appearance.

If you're making the argument that an "otherwise fine person" shouldn't be commemorated pictorially because of her appearance (and yes, it always seems to be a "her"), I'm disagreeing strenuously.

If "don't denigrate an important historic figure because she wasn't a hottie" is a political statement, well, I guess I've just made more work for a moderator.

 

It’s not subject matter that makes an ugly coin it’s the artist that makes the coin ugly.
I’ll say it again look at the Lincoln Cent. Lincoln was a very unattractive man. D.V. Brenner could have made a dog poop coin look good. It’s all in the artistic talent or lack there of......now!

 

That’s one of the nicest in his portfolio and it’s not all his work Morgan designed the Reverse entirely and collaborated on the Obverse.

 

I agree completely with this statement.

 

The "Effigy" design is a "Mona Lisa" compared to
the current Lincoln cent, Jefferson nickel, Roosevelt
dime, Washington quarter, Kennedy half and on and
on. With the current offerings it really is not that bad.
Just saying.

 

And I could find this more convincing had you not mocked Reagan's appearance. All doing so has accomplished is to show your hypocritical approach in that it is apparently perfectly fine to go as far as to make jokes and laugh about a depiction of a man, but somehow wrong when it's a woman's depicted appearance in question.

Did you happen to see the doughboy effigy posted earlier in this thread? The proportions are laughable and it looks as if he's wearing a mask to hide his deformed head, yet no one is voicing displeasure. Hmm... I wonder why?

Oh, please... you know damned well that's not what I'm saying; for Christ's sake stop virtue signaling.

The OBVIOUS point was that everyone, no matter how attractive a person may generally be, doesn't always look so good. Simply take whatever famous person you personally find appealing and google less than flattering photos of them. Hell, think of yourself, Jeff; has every photo taken of you make you appear flattering? I'm guessing not, and the same can be said for (as an example) Shriver. The chosen depiction is awful and saying as much isn't an insult to her person, or the example of misogyny so seem so desperate to suggest.

Predictable deflection. Your entire position is the same blatant political pandering everywhere today and couldn't be more obvious.

 

I was mocking the rendering of his appearance. I've never seen another image of the man that called that association to mind, but with this one, it slapped me in the face. And, to be clear again, that's a criticism of the "artist", not the subject.

I already stated my opinion about that design in another thread some time ago.

If you want people to understand what you're saying, you may want to wrap it in fewer layers of vitriolic boilerplate about "political correctness" (which, in my childhood, was taught under the name "good manners"). I honestly misread your point, and I think it was mostly because of that wrapping -- we may never see eye to eye on what constitutes "virtue signaling", but there's no reason to let that hide our areas of agreement. (And yes, I suppose I'm guilty of the same in some of my own postings here.)

 

I disagree. I like the Liberty Nickel design!

 

The Barber coins are OK, but they are average.
The Mercury dime and the Buffalo nickel which both replaced Barber coins are 2 of the most stunning, artistic coins in the US mints history. (Walker half and SLQ also great and St. G double eagle perhaps the best.)