Olympic gold and silver kilos - first look

Now online at: http://www.royalmint.com/olympicgam...omcode=W12FB

Sorry to say this James, but I think the kilo coin is ugly, regardless of the designer and why he design it that way, this is only my opinion and I am in no way an expert in art or design.

I think if that had been produced in the first year sculpting class that I did at uni it would get very bad marks! And this is from someone who has a knighthood for sculpting, hmm!

Even the weights look odd, not round to the eye! But luckily they are too expensive for most people to actually care! It is really just another reason to legally hoard gold!

I don't know, is the truthful answer. There is no limit on the number of bullion coins produced, but the range is limited to those two coins.

Well, I collect one kilo silver coins commemorating sport events, so I had to order the silver one.

It is quite interesting to have the coins designed by important sculptors: I think it is more or less a prime in the world of numismatics, especially for coins this size.
Surely a design by Damien Hirst would have fetched immediately a huge premium, but Anthony Caro is a very big name in art, too... maybe not so much in numismatics.

I hope there could be in 2012 the silver version of Caro's coin, otherwise I'll stick with Phillips' one.
I hope also that this couple of kilo coins will be just the first of a series of similar-sized coins from the Royal Mint.

The problem here can be that you have Matthew Dent designing coins for example, he is a designer, a 2D designer and his coins reflect the 2D nature of his profession.
Historically coin designers have been sculptors because of the 3D nature of a coin. I spoke with David Cornell and he is a renowned sculptor who has worked on many different coins.
But also when designing coins it is hard to know what you are going to get. David not only designs but he also made his model for his Olympic 50p and other coins, so he had an advantage over those who did not have the opportunity to experiment.

I sent in various designs for the Olympic 50p competition and those that I views are playing in 3D were only seen in 2D, which gives it a much harder impression.

But at the end of the day it doesn't matter who has done the design, it should be a high quality design, and people at the mint should not be afraid to say "that's a load of ****". Perhaps a panel of people should be formed, made of ordinary people, and ask them what they think about the coin designs.

Question. For these coins was one person tasked with the design, or were various people given the opportunity and then someone decided on one?

Love to watch the Olympics. Will never buy Olympic coins. I just don't get excited about them. Strange considering I love sports.

The silver coin is ok, but the gold is just awful. I think the Royal Mnt needs to fire some people. The gold looks like it was designed by a 5 year old. It's just a bunch of random stuff thrown onto a coin. No focal point or emotion to it. I'll stick with the 19th century stuff thanks.