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 Replies: 40 / Views: 5,369 |
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Valued Member
Spain
134 Posts |
Poll Question
Is it me, or are coin designs really getting... well, let's say... less appealing with time?
Take the euro coins, for example, I find them quite unappealing. Compare those euro coins with those from any European country 100 years ago; then 200 years ago. Which ones appeal more to you; regardless of value/scarcity?
I have no doubt, the older a design is, the more appealing they look.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
655 Posts |
I voted for older coins being more attractive. Just like me, they get better with time.  |
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Valued Member
 Spain
134 Posts |
 True! |
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Valued Member
United States
289 Posts |
I am absolutely on with the older coinage. I can still remember the first time I saw an IHC or the Capped Bust Halve dollar or quarter, I was amazed by their look. Silver', I don't know about your coinage in Spain, but it's disappointing to me for most of our coins. I really feel like the mint is cutting costs more and more, I do like the ATB series but was not that impressed with the 50 State Quarters. And...what is so popular now is the Silver Eagles, and what is that design but the design that was changed over 50 years ago. I look at my Halve dollars from 1810 to 1838, they are stunning next to what we have now. I know to each their own and I'm sure a lot now has to do with costs of production versus durable wear. How is it possible to have a 200 year old coin that looks in Mint State versus a quarter in my pocket from 1996 that is practically unreadable? |
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
One of the problems with the design of Euro coins is that although they are allowed to be different country to country, they nevertheless have to conform to a common design style to be readily identifiable as Euro coins.
There is more design freedom when it comes to precious metal collector coins in the Euro series.
It follows from this, that the design of Euro NCLT collector coins is more interesting and varied.
With coins of say, 100 years ago, they were used as an advertisement of the country that issued them. Pride was taken to make them attractive enough for the beholder to appreciate them, or for foreigners of that country to readily identify which country had issued them.
Such is the case with American coins of the neo classic period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
Less coins are actually engraved by hand. Most coins today are done on computer, which any trained monkey can do. "Hey, I designed a coin!" Because there is less skill involved they are pumped en masse. There's no artistic appreciation anymore and "machines are better than humans". In practice, this is not the case. Simply look at the thousands of designs within the last 15 years and compare them to anything done in the 19th or early-20th centuries. - US Standing Liberty quarter vs Canada September 1999 quarter..... - Australia 1927 Florin vs Canada "Cougar" Silver Ounce..... They used to design coins with coins in mind. Now they are cop-outs and being designed to sell. Coins were never meant to be "sold" per se. Just look at Star Wars themed coins. Today's coins are just bland and bubbly and are simply cartoony designs on a circular metal canvas. Real coins have a good balance of empty field, rim designs (denticles or scroll/leaves), and as much as you may not agree - facial portraits of real or imagined people. Mintages were never preconceived (or were they?) when minting a coin for the given year. Coins were money but today they are products. That's the ultimate irony. It's perverse, really, but we gobble it up anyways. |
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Valued Member
Spain
134 Posts |
The new Spanish Euro set is truly awful... have a look:  And the common obverse is also not much of a difference...  I also lived in the UK for many years, and now collect old British coins, and it's the exact same story. Actually, I collect coins from all around the world, and it's the same everywhere. Most old coins are gorgeous! I would had loved carrying those coins in my pocket every day; especially the old crown/dollar size coins. I guess now they make them unappealing on purpose, so you just think about spending them as quickly as possible.  Edited by silvermaniac
06/07/2013 8:06 pm
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Valued Member
Spain
134 Posts |
Quote:
With coins of say, 100 years ago, they were used as an advertisement of the country that issued them. Pride was taken to make them attractive enough for the beholder to appreciate them, or for foreigners of that country to readily identify which country had issued them. That's quite an interesting idea that I never heard before. And it makes a lot of sense. Quote:
Less coins are actually engraved by hand. Most coins today are done on computer, which any trained monkey can do. "Hey, I designed a coin!" Because there is less skill involved they are pumped en masse. There's no artistic appreciation anymore and "machines are better than humans". In practice, this is not the case. Also makes a lot of sense. Edited by silvermaniac
06/07/2013 8:01 pm
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Pillar of the Community
Russian Federation
5172 Posts |
I used to keep a mental list of favorite coin designs (those represented in my collection anyway). Most of these (hey who am I kidding... pretty much all of these) were from the first half of the 20th century; mainly the 1910-1940 period. I agree that there might just as well be loads of lovely pre-1910 coins; at that point it gets noticeable that I have far less coins so old (and a lot of these would've been silver, which I never had much of because of sheer price). Still, while there were a few lovely coins designed/minted in the relatively recent times (I'm talking post-1980 "relatively recent" here - can't think of any post-2000), it's nigh-undeniable that it's hard to dispute the sheer beauty of the Mercury dime; only eclipsed by the 1920s-era Netherlands 1 cent (which so far is my favorite design... though barely). |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
I suspect that governments everywhere have turned to making all of their money horrible. This is done purposely to make people stop collecting them.
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Valued Member
Spain
134 Posts |
Quote:
I suspect that governments everywhere have turned to making all of their money horrible. This is done purposely to make people stop collecting them. That comment made me laugh. :D It took me quite a while to finally start collecting the euro coins; I refused for a long time to collect such an ugly series. I only began because I thought I would regret it in the future (as when I got rid of my modern British collection by spending it during my last week in the UK), and because it's by far the cheapest option. Edited by silvermaniac
06/07/2013 8:44 pm
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Valued Member
United States
289 Posts |
 ....  Silver', don't take this the wrong way, but those "new" coins resemble tokens to me. They look like what we get playing games at an amusement center. They are truly dreadful looking, and just think someone made 200,000 a year to "design" that coinage. Niiiiiice.... I've written on this before but my wife is from China. When she started looking at my coins she could not believe what they looked like. She said they looked too pretty to be just regular everyday coins. That made me feel so great, we have a lot of Chinese coins and until very recently their designs were not much until they realized the value of the collectors market. No one here had ever heard much of collecting China's coins until their Panda design came out. Now there are TV programs selling these. We were GIVEN around 20 from the '90s because they were flooded everywhere in China back then, no one wanted them. Now they are the hottest thing going. Coin designs DO say something about the country, IMO. I wish we could get back to the beauty of earlier coins, but those days are long gone here I believe. |
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Valued Member
Spain
134 Posts |
No, you're right; they really look more like tokens than proper coins. And what's bothering me is the fact that this is the final result of a trend that has been going on for years... well, at least in Europe. You find many coins previous to the Euro in the exact same style since the 80s. Pre-euro coins from Netherlands, for example; also some from Belgium and Spain. It's a style that has been catching on in the last decades, and it's really unappealing.
Edited by silvermaniac
06/07/2013 9:00 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
624 Posts |
In my opinion modern US coins have become blasé because they have gone away from symbolic figures to profiles of political figures. I know many might not share my opinion, but I believe no political figure should ever be on US coinage. It really detracts from the art of coinage and it becomes politically symbolic instead of displaying the pride of ideals that Americans could strive for... Just my opinion. |
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Valued Member
Spain
134 Posts |
I was thinking about that fact the other day. At least they had the good taste of not using the current presidents; but we might see a day for that too. Would you imagine the 2001-2009 Bush set? :D
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Valued Member
United States
289 Posts |
Bama, completely agree with you. As I have been learning and studying our collections, there is such a drastic difference between the coins of yesteryear and now. Will I agree, I still like the Washington and Lincoln busts but NOT the "new" hodgepodge that they are today. I remember when the quarter changed and I looked at the first one and thought "what the heck is this". It just looked cheap, which is exactly what our currency has become so perhaps good foreshadowing on the part of the Mint.
They went from the Liberty Halve, arguably one of the most beautiful designs in history to the very plain portrait of Franklin, really?
Another thing, haven't all of you noticed how horrible the paper bills are. My bank says they only hold up to less than half the time they used to be. I got a 20 today from 2009 that was falling apart where I have many from the '80s that still look mint, go figure.
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Replies: 40 / Views: 5,369 |
Posted 06/07/2013 7:19 pm
