The lack of depth in new US coins

I have often wished that the US mint would put more efford in their new coins. The lack of artistic design and debth has been absent for seviral years in my oppinion. All the new coins just look like they were designed by graphic designers in a two dimentional software.
The US has produced many gems in the past but lately it just seem that the standard has gone.
I would like to see the US mint hire true artists in stead of graphic designers.
Siggi

 

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I could not agree more Siggi. Most all of the recent designs for circulation are flat, no depth what so ever. I think this is one of the reasons I'm leaning towards coins of other countries. Todays coins from the US are just boring. World coins seem to be more innovative.

Older US coins are beautiful and of course the ones I like most are VERY costly. There are also really nice older coins from other countries which are must less expensive and just as beautiful.

 

The US mint Call for Artists

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/artisticInfusion/index.cfm?action=callforartists

Program Eligibility
To qualify in the associate designer category, an applicant must be a United States citizen and:

1. have at least five years of relevant work experience or has received specialized training in his or her artistic field, such as a degree or certification
2. derive a portion of his or her individual earned income from his or her art or areas related to his or her art
3. have experience in digital art techniques such as Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, Illustrator, or Wacom boards
4. have a professional portfolio that includes published or publicly displayed art

Explains alot

 

Yep, that about sums it up. Those are absolutely ridiculous requirements. I guess the days of Mercs and Morgans are long past.

 

Many collectors who appreciate older designs will dislike or even detest modern designs. That is something that does not apply to the US only, and not to coins only. Just as modern cars are not designed and built as they were decades ago, today's coin design is different from what was common 50, 100, etc. years ago.

But I think we should differentiate: While circulation coins have to meet so many different criteria these days, collector coins - especially those that cost 30 or 40 times the face value - could indeed be created and produced differently. Silver $1 coins for example are made for people who buy them and put them in a collection. So they might as well have a fairly high relief with a lot of depth.

Also, I do not think there is anything wrong with expecting coin designers to be familiar with design software. But I do think it helps to demand a large plaster model too, as it is done in quite a few countries ...

Christian

 

They use to hand engrave the die's for the coins. This is no longer the case.

You are absolutely right it is developed in 2d software that renders it an Artificial 3d.

Unfortunately they will never go back do hand engraving as it is too expensive and time consuming. (Unless all the computers in the world crash)

 

I agre with you both, modern U.S. coinage isn't interesting at all. I never liked coins with "real" people on them (mostly politicians). I enjoy and admire the older ones that portray symbols of our country like Walkers, Standing Liberty Quarters, older bust and seated coinage, etc. To me the Ikes, Sacs and the like are just not attractive. I really have no interest in most modern issues, but to each his own.

Bruce

 

Thats because thats exactly how they were designed. Better technology has so far meant horrible coins. There's just some things even the best computers can not do right.
Guy

 

What I would like them to do is get one good artist that is a good sculpturer and see how that will turn out.

I know and have used most of these softwares and I do understand why they are being used. I just think that it´s being used by people that are not artists and are missing what the old timers had.

 

Hundreds? We've only had computers capable of doing it the last 50 or so years. What did they do before?

 

Here's some pretty good info on how dies were (and are) made. About half way down the page you'll read how the master hubs were made:

http://doubleddie.com/58201.html

 

What Doug meant was they haven't hand engraved the actual dies for hundreds of years. They used lathes to make them. Only the original plasters were made by hand. Today nothing is.

 

Is there a way to modify the subject, by the way? I think of a "lack of debt" every time I see it ... and that is a problem that hardly any country has.

Christian

 

The "debth" (sic) that you are referring to is known as 'relief'. One reason modern clad US coins have low relief is cupro-nickel is much harder than 90% silver which means that a cupro-nickel clad coin is harder to strike up than a 90% silver coin.

Let's assume you could get a pair of dies for a Walker Half and put them in a coin press set at the striking pressure used for Walker Halves. What do you think would happen if you struck two planchets with the dies - one 90% silver and the other cupro-nickel clad? The 90% silver coin would be well-struck and the cupro-nickel coin would be weakly struck because there was not enough metal flow up into the recesses of the die (because cupro-nickel is so much harder than 90% silver).

 

Thanks, looks much better now.

Christian

 

While I agree with you completely hobo,

A video I watched on the US mint (from the history channel) went over the fact that they make it a goal to ensure the relief of a coin is not thicker than a piece of paper so that the coins stack better.

They still had thicker reliefs back then take for example the nickel (25%ni 75%cu) Back then the relief was much higher whereas today (it's the same composition) and the relief is lower.

I would imagine however, that pure nickel (used to clad coins) might be harder than ni-cu alloy.

GDJMsP from my understanding I thought they would hand engrave a large (master die) and use that French Reducing machine to shrink the details in the die. (We have been using that for 100's of years)
Now they use a computer to create that hand engraved large die, touch it up and use the reducing machine to shrink it

 

The coins should stack so long as the relief is not higher than the rims.

Modern US clad coins do not have pure nickel layers. Modern US clad coins are composed of two outer layers of cupro-nickel (75% copper & 25% nickel) with a core of pure copper. So the outer layers of a modern US clad coin are the exact same composition as the five cent coin.

If they use a computer to "create that hand engraved large die" (I assume you are talking about the Master Hub) it would not be hand-engraved, would it?