Enhancing Coins

I'm with the crowd on this one - any third party enhancement is a detraction from a coin's intended design. That being said, I do like many of the coins from Canada and Australia (and others) that are colored and/or have holograms. I think with the advances in minting technology it is worthwhile to incorporate new features where and when they are useful in the overall design.

At the same time I also applaud the U.S. Mint from not just jumping in and cranking out colorized and hologramed junk just to be on a bandwagon. I would hope they are examining the technologies available and making mindful decisions of what to incorporate and when. This may be wishful thinking, however.

I wonder how far we could take that "new paradigm"?

If I were to visualize an extreme case where...
Abraham Lincoln appears on a bicentennial commemorative, where he actually splits logs next to his cabin on the obverse, and recites the Gettysburg Address on the reverse via an embedded sound chip. Of course with the advent of colored enamels and holograms, both scenes are in living color and 3D. Now there's a commemorative coin!
Of course, it might be unsettling if your whole commem collection was speaking at the same time.
Maybe that's why I'm a bit of a coin purist--I consider real coins are those made for circulation.

If it ever came to that, I would have to cease being a modern US collector and head over to the gray side!

I don't like any, but I have to admit that the holograms on them look pretty cool.

I voted bad..... Bio YOur coin is nice though

Well said!

I guess I would call myself a purist and just want my coin naturally shiney. No 'augmentation' needed.