I often find myself in conversations about "Modern Coins" and it dawns on me that I am not really sure I know what constitutes a modern coin. What do you all say? And if the coin is to old to be modern then what is it, an antique? Please straighten me out. Thanks.
Opinions differ, I say modern is anything from 1950 on. Some say from 1965 on (with the change over to clads). I have even heard modern is eveything after Barber coinage, but this is kind of silly. So,opinions differ. To ancient collectors, I believe it is after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Walter, For me I believe the mordern coins start as of 1965 because that was the end of 90% silver in coins in business strikes as we new it. The clad era marked a new direction in coins minted from the U.S. mint. BRUCE "THE FRANK GROUP"
Any coin that is NOT in my collection is common "modern" coinage. Any coin that IS in my collection is very rare and extremely valuable worth at least 10 x what I paid for it!!!! To be truthful, the way my luck goes it is probably the other way around!
My understanding of "modern" coins has always been since 1965 for the dime, quarter, half, and dollar, and since 1938 for the nickel and cent.
Pretty accurate but there are cutoffs to what constitutes "modern" for each aspect of ancient-modern collecting. Here are my personal ones: Greek-anything minted after the Roman occupation in 146 BC Roman-anything after about 450 AD Byzantine-although they lasted until the Spring of 1453,I consider anything later than 1000 AD to be modern. Celtic-since most of it was made between 150 BC-150 AD,it's all ancient Dark ages-also all ancient...from the departure of Rome to the Norman conquest. Medieval-1066 AD until the first milled coins of 1500-1600. Newer World coins-anything milled on a modern coin press to 1900. U.S.Coins-I consider anything after the demise of the Seated Liberty series and the introduction of the Barber/Morgan series to be modern with WWII being the cutoff point for "modern-modern" coins.There are those that believe the first really modern U.S. Coins were those that replaced the Indian Head-Barber stuff,namely the Lincoln/Buffalo/ Mercury/Standing Liberty/Walkers series..There is a good case to be made there. These are my "imaginary" borders and not necessarily accurate in a historical sense,just how I mentally assess how old a coin is relative to others in that part of my collection.:kewl:
Thanks all for your input. I'd like to think that modern US coinage is everything from 1965 to date since most of these are still in circulation. I have a great fancy for silver coins both BU and proofs. So if the term is not set in stone then I'll stick to this one. Thanks again.
There was a huge change in collector behavior in 1965. Before this time collectors saved new coins and afterward they didn't. If you pick another date like 1945 (after WW II) then how is a 1945 quarter any different than a 1946 quarter? How are the $1 coins different. Almost across the board there is little or no difference in the coins or their values no matter what date you pick other than 1965. There may be superficial differences such as design changes but not fundamental differences. The changes in '64 were so numerous and extreme that I won't even attempt to list them all here but just look at a price list. Without exception every denomination becomes far less valuable in unc right at 1965 and far less available. They even dicontinued the peace dollar this year. How much more fundamental can changes be?
