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2025 Liberty Gold High Relief
Cranium_Basher73
Posts: 2,835 ✭✭✭✭✭
Happened to come across this by chance.
Proposed designs for the obverse and reverse.
https://www.usmint.gov/news/ccac-meetings/2025-american-liberty-gold-coin-silver-medal-obverse
https://www.usmint.gov/news/ccac-meetings/2025-american-liberty-gold-coin-silver-medal-reverse
I like these two obverse candidates the best. 
Gotta admit, some designs are not very good in my opinion. Some too cartoony, like it came off of a show on Cartoon Network 20+ years ago.
Throw a coin enough times, and suppose one day it lands on its edge.
6
Comments
Ouch......
.
Gawd!! Some of those are just awful.
I like the chisel design first posted...
Puke...
Click on this link to see my ebay listings.
I like the 20-C design of the figurehead at the prow of a sailing ship below the bowsprit.
Coinlearner, Ahrensdad, Nolawyer, RG, coinlieutenant, Yorkshireman, lordmarcovan, Soldi, masscrew, JimTyler, Relaxn, jclovescoins
Now listen boy, I'm tryin' to teach you sumthin' . . . . that ain't an optical illusion, it only looks like an optical illusion.
My mind reader refuses to charge me....
Oh boy, brace yourself. Are there any adults working there anymore?
When did the mint raise the denomination from $50 to $100?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
The high relief program has always been $100
Thanks. You can tell I haven't been following this market.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
I look at some of those and think maybe I can design some quarters on Photoshop, I'm thinking a series on pre-8th amendment American cruel and unusual punishments like tarring and feathering royalists, drowning witches, etc., maybe to show how far the royalist and witch communities have come or something
Where in the Dollar General Art School did they come up with some of these?
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
Some look like they were created with AI.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
The first four images in the original post yes, the rest, no. There is no accounting for taste, something prevalent throughout our society these days,
The students in the short bus.
I'd imagine some of these were generated by inputting the parameters into an AI program and that these are the unattributed collaborative works of AI "artists" with verbal prompts. I'd also imagine we will be seeing more and more candidates like this in the future.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
These are some of the worst designs ever. Especially the graffiti one. Is putting a felony on a coin really appropriate?
Cheers, and God Bless, CRHer700
This crap just verifies my fears for the upcoming 2026 coins. The new mint “leadership” is going to do what it can to pervert the coinage. It’s disgusting and more than predictable. I can’t say anymore without getting political.
Having fun while switching things up and focusing on a next level PCGS slabbed 1950+ type set, while still looking for great examples for the 7070.
CCAC helps facilitate it.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I'm glad there are some "out there" designs on the list. Successful art will trigger an emotion for the viewer or make someone look at a subject differently. Not all of our coinage needs to be designed as pseudo-roman-ivory-tower. I appeciate CCAC willing to give an opportunity to designs that take a risk.
I'd prefer george Jetson or even rosey 👍
The bison designs are great.
That Robo-Liberty graffiti design you'd expect to see on a railcar as you're stuck at the tracks waiting for the train to pass.
Throw a coin enough times, and suppose one day it lands on its edge.
Correct. You are in the minority here.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
Wow. Some of the worst designs I’ve seen proposed ever. Laughably bad for some of them.
Why do they put shadows & tones on these drawings ?
That NEVER translates over to the coin.
This will be just dull-looking when produced into a coin.
Just my 2 cents.
Chris
No thanks
How about this one?
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
Flowers?
Bees? Butterflies? Oak leaf.
..yeah Canada, take that!
A torch that looks like a soft serve cone?
Very cartoony.
Looks like the pages of a coloring book.
Most of those are terrible. Mine was a joke I put together in 5 minutes and it's better. The bison charging the fence is artistically OK, but would a bison attempt to do that? Also where did that nail in the board in the middle of the design come from? Would the fence shatter like that before it even cleared it?
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
I for one would like a HR peace dollar in platinum please
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
I can’t get this thread off my mind. This junk needs to be curtailed and eradicated right now, before the cancer spreads. I agree that we don’t need all coinage to be purely Greco-Roman inspired. But, official U.S. coinage and/or bullion that looks like something out of anime, looney tunes, the side of an NYC subway car, or the deluded mind of a 12 year old bong hitter doesn’t work.
We would not only be the laughing stock of the world, we would lose yet another familiar and somewhat consistent theme of our culture. Doing this would be far, far worse than losing cursive writing!
Having fun while switching things up and focusing on a next level PCGS slabbed 1950+ type set, while still looking for great examples for the 7070.
I don’t think it is the designs Per se, I think it is the CAD that affixes a lower plane than traditional methods and uses force distribution principles for symmetry with die life in mind. Those priorities dilute even the best designs and I think it adds a flatness and lifelessness opposed to the chaos that human hands always impart. Just look at a gem BU 1956 Lincoln and then look at a 2009, same design but the new process took something away from it that almost all coins suffer from now.
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
Completely insensitive and uncalled for response.
There is a bison sans fence that's better than the one above, but they're wasting a high-relief design opportunity by not including some hilly prairie in the background.
I think what's worst is the fact that a committee wasn't sufficiently embarrassed by designs so singularly awful -- "artistically of atrocious hideousness," to quote Teddy Roosevelt -- and decided to present them to the public. My "berserk anime Liberty" took only the motivation of mockery and a few minutes of generative AI trial and error (and would actually look pretty cool on a thick, 2 oz. silver round with antiqued finish). I wouldn't have even thought of doing this had there been artistic merit to the proposed designs. I suppose it's a strange twist of irony that the dreck presented was inspirational.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
Most of these look like they belong in a comic book, rather than on coins.
Just my 2 cents.
Chris
animal breaking free was done already with the bronco
None of the designs shown in this thread (so far) were created using CAD (Computer Aided Design). All are illustrations done by hand.
The designs are submitted by (and only accepted from) US Mint staff and the people in the US Mint's AIP ("Artistic Infusion Program"). I was in the original (secret) pilot program for the AIP in 1999. I have applied many times over the years to be in the official AIP, but I have never been chosen for it.
I have suggested that the US Mint stop reviewing potential designs in 2D drawing form, and instead require design submissions to be in physical 3D sculptural form. They tried that with the WW1 commemorative coins of 2018, but that was the only instance in modern times that they did that. That WW1 design competition was one of the few that was open to the general public and not just the AIP. I participated in it, but I did not like the parameters for the 3D submission. All artists were provided with a plastic disk to carve their design into. But the disk was too small in diameter (only about 5 inches); It was too thin (about 3/8 inch); and the plastic was clear which made viewing the design difficult. It was almost as if they wanted it all to fail so that they could go back to pencil drawings with shading that can not be applied to the physical coins.
PS:
I actually used my sculpt to mint some of the WW1 coins at actual size (1.5-inch diameter) in silver and included them with my design submission to the US Mint. I suppose these could be considered as semi-official patterns. I do not have a photo of one. But here is the rendering (which was also required in the submission):
@dcarr should take over the US mint.
I actually like this one. Agreed, it needs to have some shading removed to be more representative of a coin, but it is a nice design for a high relief because the center of the flower would be raised, and a slight 3D effect with the leaves would be nice. The spiraling pattern is interesting in how it varies in the center.
National Commemorative Medals of the U.S. Mint:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/medals-tokens/national-commemorative-medals-united-states-mint-1940-present/alltimeset/195526
It would also look good in gold. The sunflower theme might be seen as a nod to Ukraine, for better or for worse, so there's potential for unwanted controversy here, unfortunately.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
I agree, my points were in general about modern mint products not about those designs as the conversation had drifted that way. But I think we agree completely that to get back to a better product the mint should put a great emphasis on the artists and the final product and put less value on their process and manufacturing optimization (at all costs).
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
Agreed, ESPECIALLY for collector coins. Maybe manufacturing is a concern for circulation coins, which makes sense but collector coins are made in very small numbers compared to that.
I like the first image in this post a lot. The Bison with the hills in the background would be my second choice but does remind me of the bronco.
Lol Lol Lol.... NO NO NO!!! All I will say other than that buffalo one looks like " I'm getting OUT of this country!!" lol.....
oh, and the " ice cream anyone??"
These can't be real, can they? Was looking to see if this was posted on April first, but it wasn't.
The first one looks like Miss Liberty must have really piss-off the mafia since her feet are embedded in concrete and she's furiously chiseling it away before they toss her into the water.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
Sadly only mine's fake.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
I don't have a problem with that, but it shouldn't be on gold. Instead of giving the secretary treasury broad authority to mint gold coins, I'd rather give the treasure secretary broad authority to mint large cents that are pure copper and there they can variate the designs as much as they'd like. I think large cents are a popular enough denomination, that like silver dollars, should exist in the modern numismatic coinage lineup
It looks like that weird modern corporate style.
Type collector, mainly into Seated. Young Numismatist. Good BST transactions with: mirabela, OKCC, MICHAELDIXON
That first reverse is missing something... I just can't put my finger on what it is!
There's plenty of awful stuff there. Now I know why I have stayed away from mint products for several dcades.
Mark
Interesting, I just don’t see the point if those are the choices. Maybe one will grow on me but hmm we will see. I won’t say no as of yet.