The most simply designed coin I own (so far)

This background information is interesting and informative. Thank you for taking the time to supply it.
I never really spent much time thinking about the Euro. I don't think it's a negative thing. I always thought that having one currency that made trade, travel across European country boundaries was a good idea as long as the flavor of each country was left intact. I love the idea of an Italian Italy, a Spanish Spain.
(p.s. I imagine by "American" point of view you mean 'North American' and are not including the other Americans - South and Central Americans in there? although, for the life of me, I can't imagine why Americans would have any feeling about it one way or the other. I could see why CT members might, because it would mean less different types of coins minted.)

Edited to state that"Brexit" probably informed my post which wondered whether there was always a current of unhappiness about the euro replacing the franc and other national coins.

 

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Oh, it's very easy - in terms of continents, there is North America and South America. The people in one country in one of the two continents are (the) Americans. Also, in a political context you will often see "Europe" referring to the European Union - of course the two are not identical, but the landmass does not make any political decisions ...

Dunno, maybe the attitude has changed in the past 15 to 20 years. Maybe public opinion in the US was or is primarily influenced by that in the UK which had never anything to do with the euro and will soon be out of the EU. And of course here in the euro area you also have people who dislike the currency, just as you have people who are against, say, nuclear energy or tuition fees. Now when it comes to coins from around here, some have really plain designs while others almost suffer from the designer's ambition to not leave a single blank spot. Here is another one (image from Wikipedia) that some collectors may and did find odd:



If the image does not show, click here. That is a commemorative €2 coin (Finland 2014) honoring the designer Ilmari Tapiovaara. You don't see him, you don't see an (entire) object he designed - all you get is part of a chair.

Christian

 

Hi @chrsmat71!
That Tapiovaara design is compelling. If you had not told me it was a chair, I would have guessed it as a partial view of a ladder.
Love Tapiovaara. Have nesting tables from 1960s.

 

I really like the inventive approach to this coin although I can't imagine it working (i.e., being acceptable enough) for anything other than a commemorative. I guess that's what's nice about commems; you have design leeway you couldn't possibly have with circulation coinage.

However, I think I'd really prefer to see the type ILMARI TAPIOVAARA 1914-1999 wrapped around the left rim rather than forming a circle of its own. I find the circle competes with, rather than supports, the chair relief. Let the field be the space around the chair!

 

Finland really does make some super weird coins. I want that guys job though, draw a bar and be like designed finished I'm going to happy hour

 

I didn't know the name Tapiovaara but when I googled him recognized a few of his chairs. According to wiki he cites Aalto as an influence, which I guess comes as no surprise. I love Aalto's architecture.

 

Finns have a tradition of pushing design boundaries—I'm all for it.

 

Weeelll, had I posted the link to the corresponding €20 silver piece too, the context would have been obvious. But then LaCointessa might have - rightfully - complained that this is not really a simply designed coin.

That silver collector coin shows Tapiovaara's Mademoiselle chair and, on the reverse, a world map with locations or trips that were particularly relevant in his life. Both the commemorative coin (those are legal tender in the entire euro area) and the collector coin (legal tender in the issuing member state only) were designed by Harri Koskinen.

Christian

 

Nice...and that, of course, is the chair I recognize. I am still bugged, though, by the circular treatment of the type: two competing elements (I'd argue) rather than one supporting/acknowledging the other.

I googled Koskinen and am familiar with his block lamp even though I didn't know it was his. http://www.harrikoskinen.com/lighting/block/

 

Admittedly I did not know Koskinen until those coins were issued. As for the two elements, could be that circles had/have a specific significance for Tapiovaara or for him. Probably not but I am not sure ...

Christian

 

Yeah, or maybe Koskinen simply wanted to do something less conventional (to his mind) than wrapping type around the rim.

But the other thing I don't like about the circle (and my last point, I promise) is that it echos the shape of the coin itself and I find this to be redundant.

Oh well, what might seem like fresh design in one person's mind could be seen as so-so in another's. That's what makes design interesting.

PS: I teach art and design and I always teach my beginning students that circles operate as "bull's-eyes": our eye goes there and gets stuck there and doesn't want to leave.

 

Simple coin designs are the easiest to counterfeit. That is probably why simple designs are few & far between. Here is the most simple design in my collection:


This Persian coin is called a “Larin”. It circulated around the Arabian Sea from the 16th to 18th Century. It was used extensively as standard international currency for trade throughout the old ports.The trade coins were both minted and used by merchants along the seaboards, somewhat regardless of national boundaries.

The name Larin is derived from the Persian town of Lar Iran which may have been the first to produce the coin.

 

Very interesting! You didn't mention this so I checked out wiki to learn that lari are made of silver wire "about 10 centimeters long, usually folded in two equal parts and shaped like a C, though there are also lari shaped like a J, an I or an S." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larin_(currency)

Talk about minimal tooling—and they certainly pose the question of what constitutes "design."

 

Another " minimalist"