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Message:: [QUOTE="medoraman, post: 1370820, member: 26302"]...and any trace of artistry. If you want to see what I believe the greatest rendition of old Abe, look at a 1960 cent in BU. That is so much more attractive than today its not funny. I find this shallow design to be one of the major contributors to horrible looking modern commemoratives. Even if they design something that looks nice, (say the 88 gold $5), they ruin it by striking low relief garbage. I find it a case where accountants can ruin a company. Its OT but let me tell you a story. In the 50's coffee in the US tasted good. Then some accountants found some cheap robusta beans and started blending them in to improve profitability. Then they started adding in a few more and a few more every year. By the 70's our coffee tasted horrible and sales were in the dumps. Overall profits were down for everyone since the general public started to assume all coffee tasted bad. It wasn't until Starbucks and similar stores started selling good coffee again that coffee profits went back up. To me, the US mint is now where coffee companies were in the 70's. Look at the sales of commemoratives. Either someone will wake up and realize they need to make beautiful coins like in the past, or they will simply destroy the desire for coins from collectors with their horrible, cheap offerings.[/QUOTE]