Mint engraving a lost art or are they lazy
stev32k
Posts: 2,098 ✭✭✭
I was going though a whole pile of coins today. A mixed bunch of Morgans, a few piece dollars, Liberty walking halves, Kennedy and Franklin halves, Washington quarters, a few Indian head pennys, some trade dollars, and others. It suddenly struck me (no pun intended) why I didn't like the modern coins. I compared the hair and feather details of a Morgan dollar with a Kennedy half then a franklin half. A well struck Morgan, or Liberty walking half has a lot of details. The hair on the Morgans is really well done and the feathers on both have a lot of detail. The franklin and Kennedy's are almost devoid of detail by comparison. Even the best proof Kennedy's look like he is partly bald. While franklin was bald on top the hair flowing down his neck has almost no detail. Compare franklin's long hair to that on the Morgan dollar. Where is the detail, and why is it missing? Was it too expensive? Did they think it was overly complex to stamp? Or is it because there is no artistic talent in the mint?
I think the early coins were made with the idea that U.S. coins should be desirable for their artistic merit as well as their intrinsic value. It seems to me both have been lost. Since we no longer mint silver coins the least we could is make some that looked half way decent. If they want to put dead presidents on coins at least make them look a tiny, little bit, artistic.
End of rant.
I think the early coins were made with the idea that U.S. coins should be desirable for their artistic merit as well as their intrinsic value. It seems to me both have been lost. Since we no longer mint silver coins the least we could is make some that looked half way decent. If they want to put dead presidents on coins at least make them look a tiny, little bit, artistic.
End of rant.
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
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RJ