State Quarters GET SLAMMED! Check this article!!!
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PLEASE NOTE....I AM THE MESSENGER...PLEASE DONT SHOOT ME...THIS IS A POSTED ARTICLE THAT I FOUND INTERESTING....ITS LONG BUT VERY INTERESTING...JON LERNER
The State Quarters
Why are they so ugly? A slide show.
By Carol Vinzant
Posted Tuesday, August 27, 2002, at 8:39 AM PT
The federal government, which is usually reluctant to tinker with U.S. money, is engaged in the most radical and democratic currency-design experiment in its history. Since 1999, the U.S. Treasury has issued 19 of the 50 coins in its decadelong state-quarters project and has approved the design for one more. For the first time in memory, states—not the U.S. Mint—are designing their own coins. The results are not encouraging. Most of the designs, usually chosen by a state commission appointed by the governor, are boring, timid, and cluttered—evidence of all that can go wrong when art is created by committee. They are also surprisingly revealing about the peculiar, parochial ways that states view themselves.
The Collage: South Carolina
The quarters fall into three main categories: the single icon, the kitschy collage, and the tableau (or the good, the bad, and the ugly). The five collage quarters resemble '50s souvenir plates. South Carolina has overlaid its state tree, state bird, and palmetto slogan on an outline map of the state. The crammed collage smacks of desperation, as though South Carolina thinks this is the only chance it will ever get to tell its story.
The Single Icon: New Hampshire
When Great Britain let each of its countries design its 1-pound coin, Scotland picked a thistle. New Hampshire has imitated that prlckly spirit with its enigmatic Old Man of the Mountain. The blob of rock is a muddy image, but it makes it clear that the people of New Hampshire don't care what the rest of the country thinks of them. This is a design that no one in the Treasury would have dreamed up.
The Tableau: Vermont
The tableaus are little paintings on a coin. The more complicated the tableau, the more awkward and ugly it becomes. Vermont, charmingly, chose maple syrup as its theme but illustrated it with a gawky picture of an anonymous guy collecting syrup from decapitated trees. The best tableaus—New Jersey, Virginia, Rhode Island—are sea scenes. Water permits handsome, clean designs that don't clutter the coins to the edge.
The Wright Fight: Ohio
Ohio, where the Wright brothers worked, has never recovered from the brothers' first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. North Carolina has never stopped gloating. The result: two Wright-themed coins in time for next year's centenary of flight. The best that can be said for Ohio's dreadful collage is that it's not as awful as the rejected alternative: a portrait of all seven Ohio-born presidents. Imagine: a Warren Harding quarter!
The Manufactured Motto: New York
States, like people, shouldn't suggest their own nicknames. The Empire State has renamed itself "Gateway to Freedom" on its quarter. There is a "gateway" drug: Missouri is considering "Gateway to the West," and Florida is mulling "Gateway to Discovery" (alternative: "Fishing Capital of the World"). Ohio contrived the clunky "Birthplace of Aviation Pioneers." Illinois is threatening to add the ersatz motto "Progress."
The Map: Pennsylvania
The outline map, which has already appeared on eight quarters, is the most common feature of the coins and a particularly lifeless one. The map is the timid state-quarter commission's best friend because it offends no one. Maps reveal nothing about the character or history of the state, the coins' purpose. CoinWorld's statequarters.com, which has studiously been tracking (and stirring up) the mounting resentment against the banal designs, calls the state outlines a "hot-button issue."
Urban vs. Rural: Illinois
The quarters, like the Senate, favor the country over the city. Not a single coin so far depicts a skyscraper or city scene. Only one of five finalists in the current Illinois contest highlights Chicago's glorious skyline. Instead there are hackneyed images of the state bird and Kentucky-born Abraham Lincoln, who's already on the penny and the $5 bill. The Dakotas would kill for a landmark like the Sears Tower, yet Illinois downplays it for the sake of the downstate crowd.
The State Capitol: Maryland
State politicians in Maryland and Pennsylvania have so lost touch with their citizens that they actually put the state capitol building on their quarters. The Maryland coin is what quarters would look like if they were designed by a politburo: a government building, generic garlands, and a motto both dull and cryptic ("The Old Line State"). A trip to any Maryland souvenir store would show what capitalism would have picked for the quarter: crabs.
Rejected Design: Missouri
There's progress. Missouri's commission recently rejected the Treasury's rendition of a design of Lewis and Clark rowing through the St. Louis Arch. One commissioner feared it would be mistaken for an Easter basket.
SO THAT IS THE END....WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK??? HAVE A GREAT DAY JON LERNER SCARSDALE COIN IN RAINY "Manufactured Motto" New York
The State Quarters
Why are they so ugly? A slide show.
By Carol Vinzant
Posted Tuesday, August 27, 2002, at 8:39 AM PT
The federal government, which is usually reluctant to tinker with U.S. money, is engaged in the most radical and democratic currency-design experiment in its history. Since 1999, the U.S. Treasury has issued 19 of the 50 coins in its decadelong state-quarters project and has approved the design for one more. For the first time in memory, states—not the U.S. Mint—are designing their own coins. The results are not encouraging. Most of the designs, usually chosen by a state commission appointed by the governor, are boring, timid, and cluttered—evidence of all that can go wrong when art is created by committee. They are also surprisingly revealing about the peculiar, parochial ways that states view themselves.
The Collage: South Carolina
The quarters fall into three main categories: the single icon, the kitschy collage, and the tableau (or the good, the bad, and the ugly). The five collage quarters resemble '50s souvenir plates. South Carolina has overlaid its state tree, state bird, and palmetto slogan on an outline map of the state. The crammed collage smacks of desperation, as though South Carolina thinks this is the only chance it will ever get to tell its story.
The Single Icon: New Hampshire
When Great Britain let each of its countries design its 1-pound coin, Scotland picked a thistle. New Hampshire has imitated that prlckly spirit with its enigmatic Old Man of the Mountain. The blob of rock is a muddy image, but it makes it clear that the people of New Hampshire don't care what the rest of the country thinks of them. This is a design that no one in the Treasury would have dreamed up.
The Tableau: Vermont
The tableaus are little paintings on a coin. The more complicated the tableau, the more awkward and ugly it becomes. Vermont, charmingly, chose maple syrup as its theme but illustrated it with a gawky picture of an anonymous guy collecting syrup from decapitated trees. The best tableaus—New Jersey, Virginia, Rhode Island—are sea scenes. Water permits handsome, clean designs that don't clutter the coins to the edge.
The Wright Fight: Ohio
Ohio, where the Wright brothers worked, has never recovered from the brothers' first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. North Carolina has never stopped gloating. The result: two Wright-themed coins in time for next year's centenary of flight. The best that can be said for Ohio's dreadful collage is that it's not as awful as the rejected alternative: a portrait of all seven Ohio-born presidents. Imagine: a Warren Harding quarter!
The Manufactured Motto: New York
States, like people, shouldn't suggest their own nicknames. The Empire State has renamed itself "Gateway to Freedom" on its quarter. There is a "gateway" drug: Missouri is considering "Gateway to the West," and Florida is mulling "Gateway to Discovery" (alternative: "Fishing Capital of the World"). Ohio contrived the clunky "Birthplace of Aviation Pioneers." Illinois is threatening to add the ersatz motto "Progress."
The Map: Pennsylvania
The outline map, which has already appeared on eight quarters, is the most common feature of the coins and a particularly lifeless one. The map is the timid state-quarter commission's best friend because it offends no one. Maps reveal nothing about the character or history of the state, the coins' purpose. CoinWorld's statequarters.com, which has studiously been tracking (and stirring up) the mounting resentment against the banal designs, calls the state outlines a "hot-button issue."
Urban vs. Rural: Illinois
The quarters, like the Senate, favor the country over the city. Not a single coin so far depicts a skyscraper or city scene. Only one of five finalists in the current Illinois contest highlights Chicago's glorious skyline. Instead there are hackneyed images of the state bird and Kentucky-born Abraham Lincoln, who's already on the penny and the $5 bill. The Dakotas would kill for a landmark like the Sears Tower, yet Illinois downplays it for the sake of the downstate crowd.
The State Capitol: Maryland
State politicians in Maryland and Pennsylvania have so lost touch with their citizens that they actually put the state capitol building on their quarters. The Maryland coin is what quarters would look like if they were designed by a politburo: a government building, generic garlands, and a motto both dull and cryptic ("The Old Line State"). A trip to any Maryland souvenir store would show what capitalism would have picked for the quarter: crabs.
Rejected Design: Missouri
There's progress. Missouri's commission recently rejected the Treasury's rendition of a design of Lewis and Clark rowing through the St. Louis Arch. One commissioner feared it would be mistaken for an Easter basket.
SO THAT IS THE END....WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK??? HAVE A GREAT DAY JON LERNER SCARSDALE COIN IN RAINY "Manufactured Motto" New York
Jon Lerner - Scarsdale Coin - www.CoinHelp.com
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Comments
I just read this article on Slate & got a chuckle. Actually most of our early & modern coinage designs were panned in their time so I suppose that 'sour grapes' will fall no mater what the design. Even St Gaudens was dissed by some...
Jimmy
Has anyone noticed all these state quarters have this really reflective brilliant luster to them and not the less subdued, but still reflective, luster of the quarters from the 80s? I don't like this new finish on the coins. Seen it on JFKs of the 80s, too.
Neil