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Most unimaginative uninspiring regular issue US coin?
topstuf
Posts: 14,803 ✭✭✭✭✭
I think I'd go with the Roosevelt dime.
You?
6
topstuf
Posts: 14,803 ✭✭✭✭✭
topstuf
Posts: 14,803 ✭✭✭✭✭
topstuf
Posts: 14,803 ✭✭✭✭✭
topstuf
Posts: 14,803 ✭✭✭✭✭
I think I'd go with the Roosevelt dime.
You?
Comments
As a kid, I always wondered why Roosevelt (on our dime) looked more like Truman. But I digress.
Yes, Roosies are pretty uninspired, but then I consider all of the presidential portrait designs to be uninsprired.
Even the simplest of designs from earlier eras seem like works of art when compared to the dead presidents.
SBA Dollar
Jeff nickels & frankies
Matron head large cent
getting away from a single "Coin" I have always wondered about Seated Coinage.
JMHO, the design itself has always struck me as bland and the fact that it was used on all denomination from the Half-Dime to Dollar for so long certainly lacked imagination. I know it is akin to heresy to think this way so I am ready to accept everyone's scorn.
Don’t worry. They took away the disagree button
I would say Kennedy halfs. And I do like franklins but they replaced the much more beautiful design of walking liberty.
I'll have to go with the SBA dollar. Both obverse and reverse are poorly executed.
Nearly all of the modern commems
I am still tremendously disappointed with the re-designed cents and nickels.
Yes, topstuf, the Roosevelt dime is insipid and doesn't even look like the man.
Not at all certain why Mrs. Roosevelt didn't object.
Don't worry. Even the ugliest, busiest, and most unimaginative coins are still collectible.
I find the Florida quarter the most unimaginative US coin. It looks like clip art. The only reason it beats out the Indiana quarter is that our racecar almost looks like it's in motion.
2 cent
CN 3 cent
Shield nickel
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
Is that due to OCD and filling holes
More seriously, I think medal collectors are more driven by artistic design than coin and token collectors.
The Wyoming state quarter with the cowboy - BORING!
10-4,
My Instagram picturesErik
My registry sets
My vote goes to the Wyoming state quarter and the Lincoln cent shield reverse.
She should have and I too believe it's the most uninspired coin since the bar cent.
From "The Galaxy" in June 1876
Now that we see real money again our attention is naturally attracted by its appearance, the look of it. That is pleasant enough in one respect. A bright silver piece, no matter what design is stamped upon it, is a much more attractive thing than a little scrap of paper, generally crumpled and greasy. But now that we see our national money again, notwithstanding all our reasons for welcoming it, we must confess that it is not as handsome as it ought to be, as it might be, or even as it once was. It does us no credit as an exhibition of our skill in designing, in die sinking, or coining. Why is it that we have the ugliest money of all civilized nations? For such undoubtedly our silver coinage is. The design is poor, commonplace, tasteless, characterless, and the execution is like thereunto. Our silver coins do not even look like money. They have rather the appearance of tokens or mean medals. One reason of this is that the design is so inartistic and so insignificant. That young woman sitting on nothing in particular, wearing nothing to speak of, looking over her shoulder at nothing imaginable, and bearing in her left hand something that looks like a broomstick with a woollen night-cap on it—what is she doing there? What is the meaning of her? She is Liberty, we are told, and there is a label to that effect across a shield at her right, her need of which is not in any way manifest. But she might as well be anything else as Liberty; and at the first glance she looks much more like a spinster in her smock, with a distaff in her hand. Such a figure has no proper place upon a coin. On the reverse the eagle has the contrary fault of being too natural, too much like a real eagle. In numismatic art animals have conventional forms, which are far more pleasing and effective than the most careful and exact imitation of nature can be. Compare one of our silver coins with those of Great Britain, France, or Germany, and see how mean, slight, flimsy, inartistic, and unmoneylike it looks. Our coins of forty or fifty years ago were much better in every respect, and looked much more like money, the reason being that they bore a bead of Liberty which was bold, clear, and well defined in comparison with the weak thing that the mint has given us for the last thirty years or so. The eagle too, although erring on the side of naturalness, was more suited in design to coinage. But still better were the coins struck at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one. The eagle was a real heraldic eagle, the head of Liberty had more character, and the whole work was bolder and better in every way.
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
The OP's question specifically asked about regular issues.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
D’oh! I love the shield reverse. It’s like having a classic coin design in circulation for me.
Agreed. Gets my vote.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
With the exception of Lincoln, my choice would be among the presidents + Franklin + SBA. As many have stated the Roosevelt dime tops my list as well. But then I was spoiled as a YN in the 50's by all the classic coins still in circulation.
Nickel Three Cent Piece
The only reason I have one is to cover the spot in my type set.
Those coins and the Shield Nickel were issued to replace and get these pieces of Fractional Currency out of circulation.
Even a boring coin can have an interesting story.
Compare one of our silver coins with those of Great Britain, France, or Germany, and see how mean, slight, flimsy, inartistic, and unmoneylike it looks. Our coins of forty or fifty years ago were much better in every respect, and looked much more like money, the reason being that they bore a bead of Liberty which was bold, clear, and well defined in comparison with the weak thing that the mint has given us for the last thirty years or so.
This is the way it always is; just wait a while and people respect the designs much more.
Anything with a past president on it
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/publishedset/209923
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/album/209923
But they had rulers who'd chop off your head if you showed them a less-than-impressive coin of their realm.
Hey....maybe.... huh?
Naaah, probly wouldn't work.
One person's cup of tea is another person's cup of clam chowder. I think the Roosevelt dime is a presidential coin. It is dynamic and flowing. To me they are beautiful. Those of you who think it lacks dynamics is why it is not regarded as collectable and that's OK. that means the prices remain affordable to the common person and it is relatively easy to assemble a complete set of certified at a very affordable price
Bob Sr CEO Fieldtechs
The shield nickel wins in a landslide.
The head of the seated figure is in a very odd pose. Don't try it yourself as you may strain your neck doing so.
The current Shield reverse on the Lincoln cent is about as boring as it gets.
I like it too..............but the issue is if it is "uninspiring", and it IS plain and simple.
So i vote Shield.
And leave Eleanor Roosevelt Alone! She got blown away by all the hoopla with the March of Dimes stuff going on.
Pete
I like to think of the reverse of the Roosevelt dime as symbolic of the "Torch Drives" that the "March of Dimes" conducted to raise money to pay for research to look for a polio vaccine. Roosevelt had polio, as did I, but the Salk Vaccine perfected in 1955, via research largely paid for by the March of Dimes, made sure that my younger sister and brother did not get the disease as well.
Ike dollar.
id say the modern commems as well.
State quarters don't do it for me. Worst of the worst is Wyoming.
bob
Second choice for me.
Pete
All modern coins with SBA the ugliest of ALL time!!
I find it interesting that an American Icon...the Western Cowboy...is so disliked. Times are changing...just sayin'.
CC
As far as the Wyoming quarter goes, it isn't the subject matter, but rather the trivial bureaucratic treatment.
Whether it was somebody in Wyoming or someone at the U.S. Mint, the same lifeless, relief less icon that is stamped on the Wyoming automobile license plates was also placed on the coin. Much better artistic subject matter and treatment was possible.
Or my native state, Michigan.
Or the Mississippi statehood quarter. The Governor's office refused to respond to repeated requests to select a design or a theme, as the other states did, so the Mint just slapped the state flower on it.
OT, but at one show I offered a "complete set" of Roosies to Billy Hall when he was still with us.
He said he'd only buy it if it was in a plastic holder.
JUST BY CHANCE..... I had the entire set in a plastic dime tube.
He bought it just for the ......presentation.
I like cowboy designs.
I like Dimes ....
Exactly. License plates are two-dimensional. Coins are three-dimensional.
@DIMEMAN The SBA dollar retained the Apollo 11 reverse (which was also featured on the Ike Dollar). This statement, an important historical statement, tends to save these two coins as historical artifacts.
While the portraits on the SBA dollar and the Ike Dollar portraits were poor, the engravers were trying to stay within a certain style that started with the Washington Quarter (some people sometimes call this style 'Houdonesque' after the French sculptor who made the Washington bust that John Flanagan based his portrait on). Staying in this style was likely intended to provide a certain uniformity to the circulation coins.
Barber dimes. Uninspiring portrait on the obverse, simple wreath with ONE DIME on the reverse. At least the quarter and half have a somewhat interesting eagle on the reverse.
BTW: I didn't say I didn't like them. I have a date set and enjoy slowly upgrading them. I just think the design is very unimaginative
When I first say the Wyoming State Quarter, the image of an outline for a cowboy riding a carousel pony came to mind. It just didn’t do much for me.
Up until about 2003 I had a complete set of the modern $1 commemoratives. At that time I took the entire set out and set them up in a display case. Looking at them I thought, "What a bunch of boring, uninspired designs." I decided to end the collection then and there and soon sold all of them. I haven't regretted doing so.
@BillJones I believe the outline image of the Cowboy on a Bronco is (or was) much used by the Wyoming state government.
The bucking horse is supposed to represent the "Untamed Spirit" of the State, or some such thing.
This does not make it much of a recommendation for use on the National coinage.
Oh, I love cowboys and have original artwork of same on my walls, and perhaps this is why I abhor the Wyoming quarter. Looks like a paper cutout with no definition or perspective.
bob
Here's one above my office desk: