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Which mint is acknowledged to be the best?
Orlena
Posts: 300 ✭✭✭
I’m just wondering if there is any sort of consensus on which of the world mints produces the highest quality coins? US, UK, France, Australia.....? I’ve never seen any articles and the COTY awards seem to be spread out among the countries sooo just curious if anything has ever been compiled based on professional opinions. Thx
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Given the diversity of taste among collectors, I don't think there's a definitive answer. Even issues from a single mint can vary in popularity. The US Mint did make both the Saint-Gaudens double eagle, and the Susan B. Anthony dollar, after all!
I don't think that there is any concensus on which mint is best. I really don't think that any one mint is better than any other.
An almost impossible comparison in my opinion.
The US led the world in proof quality coins for many decades, in my opinion. Countries like Canada didn't even make many proofs for many years, for example.
But now the circulating coinage from Canada is outstanding.
But the US creates an unprecedented amount of circulating coinage, so quality varies.
European mints do a great job but mintages are much smaller than the US.
Too many variables....
Couldn't resist
The US lagged behind Europe for the 1700s and 1800s. They caught up in the WWI to WWII time period.
A lot of countries seem able to make high quality coins now.
I think France has always been up there in quality over long periods of time.
IG: DeCourcyCoinsEbay: neilrobertson
"Numismatic categorizations, if left unconstrained, will increase spontaneously over time." -me
To me it comes down to the look of a coin, early American coinage was beautiful to me. I contribute that to the coin designers of the early years, as it seems they really took pride on the piece they were working on.
Collect raw morgans, walkers, mercs, SLQ, barber q. Looking at getting into earlier date coins pre 1900s.
The best mint:
I'll second the quality of the Monnaie de Paris. It really opened my eyes to where the US Mint stood in the early 19th century compared to the older European mints when I got my first silver 5 francs (an 1827-L of Charles X). The quality of the strike looked more akin to something from the 1870's or later from the US. My 1828 US large cent looked quite crude in comparison, despite being from a similar time period. The US Mint really had some catching up to do!
There is no question that in the very late 18th century and much of the 19th centuries the European mints were well ahead of the US. And why not, we were a new country starting from scratch.
Some of the quality of European coins and medals from that era is mindboggling.