What happened to the relief on Washington quarters?

Baley

I like the old high relief silver coins they used to make much better than the new spaghetti hair quarters they make now. Does anyone else feel this way? The old kind seems sort of sculptural, while the newer designs seem less asthetically pleasing to me, at least, and "strike" me as flat, and the attempt to make up for the shallow relief with exaggerated detail seems lame. Maybe someone could post some pics of the different hairstyles George wears in the clad segment of the series, and we could compare them. I'll start with a silver one:





probably the only good thing about the newer quarters is they stack better.

Baley

Furthermore, the silver coins have much nicer luster than clad coins. And sometimes attractive toning





Yes, it is my belief that silver Washington quarters are better in all respects than clad quarters.

Baley

1958 coins, in particular, are often found with nice colors, and deep relief

Baley

Our quarters used to be such an honor to the Father of our Country.



Frankly, I'm kind of embarassed about the way George looks on state quarters.

I hope someone can post some pictures of good looking modern quarters and make me feel better about our more recent coinage...

dorkkarl

i thought for sure this would be a rolaids commercial (how do you spell relief)!

K S

LanLord

dam shame, that's what I call it. We have sacrificed the aesthetic value in our coins for the ability to mass produce and store them in a vault.

nwcs

Where did all the chocolate chips go? Wouldn't want my cookies to be bald!

Shamika

"I like the old high relief silver coins they used to make much better than the new spaghetti hair quarters they make now. Does anyone else feel this way?"

ABSOLUTELY! The old quarters had a medalic look to them.

windwhispersintrees

The more sculptural head, I agree, is the most attractive. I think they first tinkered with flattening the head in the early 1990s? With the state quarters, it now looks almost cartoonish.

I've never been crazy about the Washington quarter....mostly because of the reverse....just seems too crowded and tight. Perhaps the state quarters will get Congress thinking about changing to an entirely new design for the quarter.

DHeath

I think the spaghetti hair trend began with the Liberty nickel. Before you flame me, I think they're cool, and sometimes attractive, but look at the hair and compare it to the low-relief clad Washington. I think they had the same hairdresser.

BillJones

I prefer the spaghetti hair design to tell you the truth. I never cared for the “bald” look that the Franklin half dollar and the Washington quarter had in their earlier years. As for overall attractiveness, given that you are looking at coins in the same grades, the same strike sharpness and the similar toning, silver coins will always look better than copper-nickel pieces. Silver reflects the light better and provides a pure white background. Copper-nickel is a bit gray, and it usually does not tone as nicely.

As for the relief, that’s the price we have to pay for the use of copper-nickel (it is harder to strike and tougher on dies) and the need for macro mass production. If the mint system tried to impart the old higher relief designs to our modern coins, the production problems would multiply, and we probably would not have the state quarter series to collect.

CarlWohlforth

I've looked at a few Kennedy and Jefferson proofs lately. It seems the same thing happened there. I agree the older designs look better.

EvilMCT

Sorry, but I like the spaghetti look a lot better than the balding one. I do not see why adding some actual detail to the design is a bad thing. On the other hand, I'd prefer any of the previous quarter designs to Washington (new or old).

Ken

Baley

Sorry, but I like the spaghetti look a lot better than the balding one. I do not see why adding some actual detail to the design is a bad thing.

Well, let's see some pictures of some of your best ones then!

I challenge anyone to post better looking quarters!

kamehameha00

<< <i>Sorry, but I like the spaghetti look a lot better than the balding one. I do not see why adding some actual detail to the design is a bad thing.

Well, let's see some pictures of some of your best ones then!

I challenge anyone to post better looking quarters! >>




You didn't say what type

keets

hey Ken

actually, it's just another thinly veiled knock on moderns. it seems that no matter what the mint does they can only fail. take a weak two-sided design, recut the dies to show more detail and let the collecting community moan about it. and while we're at it, the clads sometimes tone nicely, also. i have an almost blue 1965 and a 1996-D that has very attractive bulls-eye toning. but many collectors maintain that clad doesn't tone. oh well. perhaps they should complain about shield nickels which is where the composition got it's first try. drat!! those lousy nickels are the start of all this clad-crap!!

anyone ever look at some of the classic commems and the low relief they have?? some are flat as a pancake but that hallowed ground will never get tread upon!! OK, i'm done. go ahead baley, continue the rant.

al h.

keets

al h.

coppercoins

Actually my problem with moderns is purely an artistic one. There's NO WAY to capture the depth of ANY of the old designs with the current die making method and very low-relief designs. It's not simply a matter of cutting spaghetti lines in Washington's wig, it's a matter of cutting all the depth out of a design to make a purely utilitarian piece of metal rather than coins a country can be proud of. The whole thing centers on money and the fact that it's more expensive to make decent coining dies that break after a while because the design is deep. THAT's the REAL problem with moderns. I sure wish they had the depth of the old designs, I'd probably be collecting them ad-nauseum if they were appealing....I don't care what the mintages are.

Skipper53

you're right. the new quarters look like they were rolled out.
I much prefer the deep,full strike.
I guess the Mint has found out how to maintain some detail
while lowering the pressure.

keets

hey Baley

consider the challenge met. and believe me, it looks much better in-hand, especially the reverse which has a very nice bulls-eye effect. i challenge yoiu to show me a better detailed non-proof Washington than what the newly made dies produce.

al h.

keets

hey Coppercoins

actually, my problem with collectors who always want to voice an opinion about their disdain for moderns is that they avoid the honest, hard look at the state of circulating coinage designs throughout almost half of the 19th century with half-cent and one-cent denominations, and well over half the century with the half-dime, dime, quarter, half-dollar, dollar and briefly the twenty-cent denominations. a grand whopping total of two designs with very, very minor differences. coronet heads and seated libertys may be fine designs, but can you imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth if we currently had one design on all our coins?? WOWZER!!!!

i mean honestly, if variety is the spice of life, the mid-1800's were a numismatic salt and pepper diet, very bland.

again, not knocking the designs which i actually like, i just don't glorify them at the expense of a realistic assessment.

al h.

cladking

The clad quarters have been around for a very long time. They've been around longer
than the silver Washingtons were in fact. The clad era has seen a wide range of reliefs
and changes for this coin. The early issues actually used the exact same dies in a few
cases. There was no large change in relief until 1971 and then it was lowered in a long
series of steps with the largest ones occurring in the 1990's (half a generation ago).
The cu/ni clad is a very hard and durable composition which erodes the dies very quickly.
The mint has been hard pressed to make up to 16 billion cents per year and maintain
the artistic integrity of a coin which was universally ignored until it became widely panned
only very recently.

Baley

I apologize if anyone took offense at my intial assertions. Rather than raise ire, I was hoping to see some nice pictures of the evolution of the Washington quarter over the years, and give folks who know more about this subject than me a reason to show off some of their prize specimens of later date quarters.

Nice '96-D Keets. Is it for sale?

BillJones

Actually from what I have read about the modifications to the Washington quarter, the mint as made the changes to the design over the years as numerous attempts to improve its appearance. The sad part is that this coin should never had existed in this form Mrs. Laura Fraser won the competition fair and square, but Andrew Mellon, my least favorite secretary of the treasury intervened on behalf of his buddy, John Flanagan. Flanagan’s design was clearly inferior, especially on his crowded reverse.

Judging by the quality of the 1999 Washington $5 gold piece, I’d say that we would have had a better looking coin if Mrs. Fraser had gotten her just due.

keets

hey Bill

thanks for mentioning that. i read a complimentary article in CoinAge a while back which was the mention i had heard of the Laura Fraser design. it makes a very nice commem and fits in with my ideas about rejected designs/patterns that could serve well in the Mint redesign efforts.

Baley, sorry if i misunderstood and jumped the gun. the Washington isn't for sale, at least not yet. it's in an ANACS MS63 holder and i "stole" it at a local auction for $5 when it went unbid upon. i think i could have gotten it for less!!

al h.

numonebuyer

I was so thrilled the US Mint actually changed a coin, that I never really considered how the design changed. Now that you bring it up and I compare the two, I actually like the way George looks now.

Numonebuyer

Baley

I thought maybe some people who were proud of their clad Washington's would like a chance to show them off!

Or your silver ones!

do not many people collect Washingtons?

I like em!

Colorfulcoins

Not clad but I'm proud anyhow!

Baley

That's what I'm talkin' bout! NICE coin!!!

cladking

<< <i>I thought maybe some people who were proud of their clad Washington's would like a chance to show them off!

>>



I'd love to post some coins for you, but lack any of the imaging equipment. The only
pictures in my computer are circulated varieties which most would find boring or worse.

drainbamage

You guys got me to thinking..... time to do some research.....

DHeath

The three below are 1st year clads.

DHeath

I still like this look too.

construct

The reason the coin looks flat is because it IS flat. The older ones have a slightly concave field. The new ones are flat as a pancake.

I hate the spaghetti hair, but I hate the sunken cheek even worse. It makes the light reflect in all different directions in a most unappealing way.

Shamika

BillJones is right. You just can't beat the look of silver.

No matter what you do with the design, you sill have a clad coin.

FullHorn

Pass the pasta please

cladking

<< <i>The reason the coin looks flat is because it IS flat. The older ones have a slightly concave field. The new ones are flat as a pancake.

>>



The older clad Washingtons were shaped like a lens and bulging out on the obverse,
but this was reversed in 1996. This is part of what makes them so unattractive to some
people. In time most will probably become accustomed to it though I haven't yet really.



<< <i>You just can't beat the look of silver.
no matter what you do with the design, you sill have a clad coin. >>



Funny thing is that coins and many other things have been made out of a very wide array
of metals for millenea and a good rule of thumb is that silver doesn't look like gold which
doesn't look like copper, etc. Copper/nickel clad does not look like silver nor does it look
like gold or copper.

It is the fact that the coins are made of base metal which led to their not being saved in
substantial quantities like so many of their predecessors. The fact that they are "unnaturally"
shiny and so durable is much of their charm to those who collect them. The fact that the
composition is so very hard is what makes them difficult to find well struck.

Those who prefer silver to cu/ni have many coins to choose their collections from. -Have at it.