Given the increasing quality of ancient fakes, I'd say yes. While it wouldn't be practical for circulation coins, could commemorative coins be made with the same artistic quality as ancient/early modern coins? I've seen some neat Cook Island moderns, but they don't have the same look as the oldies. It's a modern coin with a fancier design. This Louis XIV medal (random example)https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/nu..._de_hollande_1672_mauger/1224052/Default.aspx is a really impressive coin, from the early modern era. I bought one with a neater reverse and even people from work who aren't into coins said, "That's just cool." Many of the AR Tetradrachms from the Seleucid realm have such high obverse relief that they are virtually 3-D. And let's not forget the famous (and expensive) Tetradrachms of ancient Syracuse. I recently picked up a budget example of a Seleucid: (the obverse has VERY high relief) That (and the history) is what attracted me into the ancients/early modern realm. I just love the look of struck coins. Although I have pitifully few, Spanish cobs are my favorites of the 'modern' era. I cannot remember where I heard this story and it may just be an urban legend, but Teddy Roosevelt allegedly asked one of his Treasury officials about the possibility of making higher-relief coins. The reply was that it would take so long with modern equipment that the output would be pitiful. The composition was also vastly different. Take the current Tubman commemoratives, for example. Even the best of the lot, the silver dollar, has kind of a tepid reverse, some cartoonish figures with stars. One wonders what design the best of the Syracusian die engravers would have come up with? I'm also glossing over the many ugly ancient and medieval coins that also existed. Many of those also weren't purposely ugly. The thread would become overly long if I went into detail, but there were a variety of reasons. When did more elaborate coins go out of fashion? I'd guess World War I. One still sees a lot of elaborate pieces from the Victorian era, which heavily borrowed from the Classical era.
It's been since the ancients that coins were made with any type of high relief. There might be a few out there. I can think of the 1921 Peace dollar, it's portrait and reverse were higher than the rims. This caused all kinds of problems striking them and stacking them. Medals are a little bit different. Medals weren't intended to be stacked and counted. Still there are a few modern medals that are high relief and possibly even higher than the Louis Vllll above. Here are a few from the 70's. Struck in the early 60's by Medalic Art. .9999 22.8g, about 3/16ths of an inch in relief. and also in copper/bronze. 19.8g This Ike inauguration medal is at least a 1/4". Your Seleucid is nice I like it. The relief on the Claudius AS. Ric 95 is fairly high relief and what drew me into buying it.
Coins are struck very quickly in order to produce eight billion pennies a year for the zinc industry. Stop the penny and we could have higher relief than we ever did with modern steels and equipment.
Very cool examples. I'd say the Eisenhower/Washington ones are every bit as high relief as the Seleucid Tetradrachm.
You have to strike them out of decent metal first. They couldn’t get a decent strike of a st Gaudens or a peace dollar or a standing quarter etc. and those were gold and silver. This clad crap can’t be struck in high relief
I don't believe this is strictly true. Certainly cu/ ni clad copper was chosen specifically because it is a very hard metal that wears forever in circulation. The 45% of old clad quarters that survive in circulation are cull because of modern handling techniques but they still have lost only about 10% of thickness and 2% of their weight. They are tough as nails. Some like the 1972 issues appear to be even harder than others. But these coins were made from softened planchets in an operation known as annealing before being struck. I'm sure even after annealing they are harder than gold or even silver but modern die steels are many times tougher than they were back in the days when relief was lowered again and again to free up production capacity to make worthless pennies. It's ironic the pennies can't survive anyway because the metal virtually evaporates in air but because of them all of our coins have to look bad. They look so bad the mint won't even investigate what exactly has torn up most of the coins in circulation. It's perhaps even more ironic that nobody will collect clads because they are considered debased garbage but in point of fact clad is the highest tech metal ever used in coins at least through 1965 and almost none survive in any collectible grade because something has scratched them to bits in the last quarter century. And by the by the older clad quarters had nearly as high of relief as the silver did.
Here's something that's puzzled me, though. The outer layers of clad coins have exactly the same composition that's been used for well over a hundred years in five-cent coins -- 75% copper, 25% nickel. I'd expect clad coins to wear at the same rate as nickels, but I've seen lots of slick Liberty nickels. (I'll leave out Buffalo nickels, because it's obvious that their raised dates will wear off quickly, but the design itself is struck in fairly high relief, and persists even when heavily worn). I've assumed that I see more slick nickels because (a) they're older and have had longer to circulate, and (b) coins were used much more heavily in the 19th and early 20th century than in the late 20th and early 21st century. Is there perhaps some additional difference in the way the metals are annealed or struck? Do clad coins actually hold up better than nickels, given identical age and circulation patterns?
The difference is simple. In the 1890's if you saw a ditch being dug there would be 9 men shoveling and one man laying out the course of the ditch, supervising, and attending to the specifics of the job. He'd even jump down in the hole and lend a hand when he had the time. Now days if you see the same ditch being dug there will be a back hoe with an operator, a supervisor and nine men watching. If they get it done sooner they'll sit in the lunchroom the rest of the day. In the 1890's the men carried much of their wealth and almost all of the money they'd need for the day in their pockets which would jingle as they worked. Physical labor was the primary cause of coin wear. Most people would be amazed to know how fast a coin wears in the pocket. Today there is very little physical work being done and instead of change jiggling in pockets it's credit cards in the wallet. Coins are used differently. A worn out 1883 nickel in a workmen's pocket might be used to buy breakfast and then change hands a few times in a single day. But now coins are used once to make change and then will sit in a change jars for weeks or months before being hauled off to the bank. Rather than being worn sliding across counters, being tossed into tills, and jiggling the coins are mostly worn by going through counting machines. The wear is different and much less destructive to the surface of the coin over the decades. The old clads are mostly still awful but the total amount of metal eroded away is lesser.
Cook Island coins have some interesting examples of high relief coins. The arethusa piece is amazing but how do they make them? The fine detail on this coin is still a mystery to me as to how it’s made. Any thoughts?
Don't forget parking meters and early vending or soda machines wearing them from long terms od scratching against each other in a pocket.
I guess it depends on one's definition of clad, but plated coins have been around since the earliest coins. Forgeries were made by adding a foil (sometimes thick) of gold or silver over a copper core. Or, if one counts silver enrichment/pickling in billon coins, to draw the silver part to the surface. An example of a well-done forgery from ancient times. It's amazing how easily pennies are trashed. I found a couple of pennies under the bathroom hamper, totally destroyed. The floor doesn't even get wet in there, nor does the shower run in that one. The Romans discontinued denominations. The penny is the semis of our times. Why not phase it out?
Hey now, we have phased out coins! We phased out the half-cent in 1857. It was a silly denomination that nobody wanted to bother with any more, seeing as how it was worth only... about one-sixth of a dollar, in today's prices. Seems to me there's a lesson here about the modern cent. And nickel. And dime.
