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 Replies: 14 / Views: 1,960 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2815 Posts |
I was just thinking about this. The CLASSIC US coins ended with the Franklin half, with MODERN beginning in 1965 and the end of silver in circulating coinage (except for the Kennedy half). Now, fast forward a couple of hundred years. Do you think collectors of the future will still refer to the coins of the late 60's to late 80's as Modern? Or will these coins always be referred to as modern coins, even though they would be 150-200 years old by then? At some point, would it be reasonable to to think that the term "modern" would drop off in describing the Kennedy half and other coins of this era? Maybe the term will change to CLASSIC MODERN? Curious. Edited by Darth Morgan
10/05/2013 11:07 am
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3167 Posts |
Or they may just keep it at modern, and come up with a new title for the current coins of that era. But... who can say  We'd need a time machine to find out.... I think there is a member here who has one...  https://goccf.com/t/154475Edited by noahs-numismatics
10/05/2013 11:17 am
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Theyll be classic coins at some point too. Remember what we call classic at one point in time was considered modern. Its possible they do something to differentiate between the silvers and the clads still but as time passes its hard to keep calling them modern. The one thing that can make it awkward is if 200 years from now we still have the Roosevelt dime for instance. Its hard to call a 1947 a modern in like 2200 but at the same time it could still be the current design. We really have that problem now though too. Its the same time period as Franklins but because its current its lumped in with modern. |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
856 Posts |
I guess people will use what works. Here in Britain many still consider 'modern' coinage to have started in 1816. That's because two things happened then.
Firstly the face value of the coin was separated from intrinsic value of the metal it was made from. Which is fortunate because carrying around an ounce of copper because that was worth a penny (which is what happened immediately beforehand) was no doubt a nuisance!
And secondly modern machinery was introduced to make the coins.
Of course, since then we've had to introduce the term 'decimal' to cover coins after 1971 and so people do talk about 'pre-decimal' to cover what I guess is 'late modern'(!) And before modern .. we had 'milled', 'hammered' then going back, medieval, Norman, Saxon, etc.
It's perhaps not perfect, but it's traditional and works. And I expect your 'Modern' coinage might be adjusted in time to mean the more current stuff and another term introduced for silver coinage or whatever. We'll just have to wait and see!
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:
Do you think collectors of the future will still refer to the coins of the late 60's to late 80's as Modern? Or will these coins always be referred to as modern coins, even though they would be 150-200 years old by then? It depends on whether or not they have changed the designs by then.  |
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Moderator
 Australia
16810 Posts |
You American collectors are so parochial.  For the rest of us, the "Modern" age of coinage began long before the 20th century. In the British series, it is deemed to begin in 1816, or with the introduction of machine-struck coinage in AD 1658. For me as a more general collector, I've put the boundary between "mediaeval" and "modern" at AD 1450. That's all thanks to the early Renaissance historians and scholars of around that same time period, who saw themselves and wrote of themselves as "Modern" as opposed to their more primitive "mediaeval" forebears. We've been calling them "Modern" ever since. So no, the definitions of Ages generally do not change, once they are set, especially given the proliferation of published works already calling this present period "Modern". Calling some other time period "Modern" will just confuse everybody. They might one day draw a line at which the "Modern Age" ends, but they'll probably keep calling it that. They'll just give some new name to whatever post-modern post-apocalyptic Age they find themselves in. This is all assuming, of course, that English is still going to be a living language which everybody uses in 200 years time. If our descendants are all speaking Galactic Spanish by then, then the issue will be rather moot. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1302 Posts |
I agree with Sap in terms of what modern means for numismatics in general, however, if one is to make the distinction of modernism in terms of American coinage, I think he does not leave room for a serious differentiation of stylistic and cultural references on American coinage. In a small-cap modern sort of way, I wrote in the June issue of the Numismatist (check it out) that american modernism is coin design runs from 1932-1982. I believe in 1982 and beyond, a shift towards postmodernism in American design began.
In capital-letter modernism, everything Sap said is right.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
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You American collectors are so parochial. Everything is perspective. I remember when I used to think of early Greek and Roman coins as being "ancient". Then I started studying the great pyramids and now I think of coinage as a very very late invention. The Egyptians had been mining gold and a little silver for thousands of years and the pyramids were ancient before anyone ever though to use standard weights of the metal and put a seal on them. Now I think of anything from after 2000 BC as being "new fangled". Of course, "modern" coins will be seen in a new perspective in the long run or in the short. Never before have half century old coins been thought of as being modern so it's already long* overdue. *not very long compared to the age of the pyramids though. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
979 Posts |
Classical musical is divided into eras, why not coins? I'm sure it will happen. But who will decide what to call what?
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2815 Posts |
Great comments thus far, guys. A very interesting discussion.
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Moderator
Australia
16810 Posts |
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I remember when I used to think of early Greek and Roman coins as being "ancient". Then I started studying the great pyramids and now I think of coinage as a very very late invention. Given that the boundary between the "ancient" and "prehistoric" periods is, logically, the invention of writing (around 4000 BC, plus or minus a millennium), I would agree that coinage (invented around 650 BC) was a very "late ancient" invention. But still "ancient", as the ancient-mediaeval boundary is usually set somewhere around the termination of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476. Quote:
But who will decide what to call what? The numismatists of the future, of course. Specifically, the authors and writers: the people who make the iconic, seminal works which everyone else refers to. If you're influential enough and the number of people who disagree with your opinions is small enough, you can singlehandedly introduce entirely new terminology, or reassign new meanings to old terminology. People didn't call Morgan dollar die varieties "VAMs" until the Van Allen & Mallis book came out. But back to the subject of eventually changing the name of your current coinage age, I offer one further observation, based on what has happened in other countries. Your unit of currency, the American dollar, has been around for far longer than the average life expectancy of a typical currency unit, but it is neither immortal nor eternal - one day it will be replaced by something else. When that happens, I suspect, all "classic" and "modern" American coins will be lumped together into a new, broader category, the "Dollar series", as opposed to the "Amero series" or "NewDollar series" or whatever you decide to call the thing that will eventually replace the dollar. The dollar series, being quite large, could well be divided into sub-series by collectors and specialists: perhaps "early dollar", "classic dollar" and "late dollar". But it would take a tectonic shift of that magnitude before the word "modern" is abandoned as a describer for the current coinage, I think. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
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But it would take a tectonic shift of that magnitude before the word "modern" is abandoned as a describer for the current coinage, I think. Change rarely comes piecemeal. It comes as massive waves and without warning. This can not only happen to how we view the age of coinage but how we see human history. Nothing in nature is static. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2311 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
927 Posts |
I am very frightened by the possibility that Roosevelt dimes could still be a current issue 100 years from now. Well maybe not because it will be worth far less than the current Lincoln Cent is now. Perhaps inflation is not always a bad thing after all. |
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Valued Member
United States
406 Posts |
I think "modern" is already starting to recede from the 1964-70 era coinage. To me "modern" U.S. coinage, just in my own head, starts with the clad issues in whatever series. But then, I mostly do Kennedy halves among the more "modern" stuff. |
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Replies: 14 / Views: 1,960 |
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Posted 10/05/2013 4:24 pm
