There's been some rumblings on this board about getting rid of the dead president designs on some of our coins and going back to allegorical representations of lady liberty. This 1988 US Gold Commemorative has a fantastic and underrated design in my opinion. Very clean and beautiful. I for one am on this bandwagon ... as my favorite coins designs are from the 1920's and 1930's. The only change i might make is put the "Liberty" on her headband ... move the date down a bit ... and add a "United States of America" around the outside. Now that would be approaching perfection (in my eyes at least!)
Last night at the ANA Summer Seminar I attended a meeting of the CCAC (Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee). The CCAC advises the Mint and Congress regarding coin designs (among other things). At last night's meeting they formed a subcommittee that will make recommendations to help get jump start the "Coin Renaissance" proposed a few years ago by Mint Director Moy. They considered several examples of semi-recent US and world coin designs - not to copy but from which to get ideas. Of about 40 US coin designs the CCAC subcommittee considered the FIRST design they rejected was 1988 $10 obverse. The "art" lady (who made the presentation) thought having Liberty on a coin was old fashioned and "looking back rather than looking forward". I may not know much about art but I know what I like and I like that obverse. But what do I know?
Magnificent ! :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: Make all denominations different; put the best design on a quarter. It's the largest size seen daily by everyone. Not many people see halves. No more politicians - that just leads to meaningless arguing and rancor. A design like the one above is low controversy; I think most of the public will be impressed.
Thats a pretty nice design. Of course, they'd just clutter it all to pieces with a bunch of wording ruining any pleasing aspects in the process. Guy~
That's the 1988 $5, not $10, right? If you have a way to contact the "art" lady, try mentioning to her, the concept of Liberty maybe old, but only because our founding fathers thought it should be an essential part of American life, as we still do today.
Hobo, thanks for the info on the subcommittee ... i think that is great news ... at least someone is thinking about this issue. Moy is a joke ... it seems like everything has gone downhill since he's been in charge ... starting with the AGE & ASE proof issues I agree with what someone else posted above ... i am done with the whole dead president thing ... completely bored with those designs.
I love this allegorical representation, and I agree that LIBERTY should be moved to the headband (maybe widen it just a tad) and the date lowered. I also like the way IGWT was placed unobtrusively on the end of the headband rather than somewhere in the field so as not to give the design a cluttered look. Personally, I hate the edge lettering they are using now on the dollar coins. It looks so amateurish. I was really disappointed when they changed the reverse design of the Sac. Despite the fact that Benny F. suggested that we adopt the turkey as our national bird, I still prefer the eagle reverses because it is part of our heritage. Chris
Maybe this is why most of the new designs of coinage since the statehood quarters came out look like they were copied from the clipart of Microsift Word 1997. The 2010 cent and the 2004 buffalo nickel is the ONLY design change I would of approved after the year 2000.
There are a few statehood quarters that were palatable, at least on the statehood side, but I completely agree with you on the two coins you mention. I think part of the problem with today's designs is that they are too high tech. Too much exactness; too little actual art. When the best designs currently being minted were designed many decades ago, the designers are doing something wrong.
Wow I really love the design of that coin, beautiful. If I ever buy gold I may have to get one of those... (I don't think she looks like a man)
Kind of a modern “thin” faced liberty, but very very nice. I agree the word liberty would help it look more like a coin, than a token.
