Will we have beautiful coins again? US Mint wants rivals to St. Gaudens, Brenner and Weinman!

I'll be excited when I see results. Even our good designs have been dumbed down over the years--Washington and his spaghetti hair being the best example. I understand the technical reasons for doing so, but they don't lend themselves to appealing designs. I'll grant them that perhaps a design made with such limitations in mind from the outset may fare better for a final product, but seeing what happened to Washington, I can't imagine they couldn't have made some slightly different tweaks in 1999 to have a product as technically good, but also more aesthetically pleasing.

Much as I'd be against reviving old designs, they're so much better than what we have, I'd take them over what we've seen as modern creativity. But in clad, the old designs may make me cry.

“Will we have beautiful coins again? US Mint wants rivals to St. Gaudens, Brenner and Weinman!”

No, those days are unfortunately past us. The mint is primarily concerned with their operating budget and making money off of collectors, plain and simple.

Their poor coin designs reflect my sentiment it and so do the gimmicky offerings, limited mintages, reverse proofs and other poorly thought out and executed ideas.

@kiyote said:
I still feel like we have a certain blindness to designs just ‘cause they are new.. i’ve really liked some of the designs that have come out recently.

This is the only one I WOULD like if they removed the gears. Finally a decent rendition of Liberty and the background sucks. Maybe a sunrise without overstated rays coming over mountains would've been nicer.

I have been lamenting our poor coin designs for years - here and elsewhere.... I agree with @291fifth and @airplanenut ..... It is not a competition, it is created beauty.... and make the process work to accurately display the beauty.... No commercialization, just art. Design by committee results in mediocrity without meaning. Cheers, RickO

I think it mattered more then when a Quarter Eagle represented a weeks pay. Coins today are for the most part worthless. How much can you purchase for a quarter today when a candy bar costs over a dollar?

As long as the humanity has left the building I won’t expect much. Everything is done by computers now a days. From the design all the way down to the cutting of the dies are done by machine and I for one don’t like it. I want hands on again.

@291fifth said:

@BryceM said:
Execution of the designs is a far bigger problem than the designs themselves. Imagine a St Gaudens $20 or a buffalo nickel as the mint would produce them today. They’d be flat, sterile, and devoid of emotion.

Imagine how phenomenal a Sac dollar or ASE would look if rendered directly from a physical sculptural model. They’re already good, but they could be outstanding. It’s the touch of the master that is missing. The current Chuck-E-Cheese token garbage coming out if the mint today lacks soul, even when the designs are stellar.

Actually, the obverse of the St. Gaudens $20 is very disappointing when rendered in the low relief version. It was intended as a high relief design and doesn't look good otherwise.

It's funny... I really like the St. Gaudens design, and overall, I think it's one of the best designs ever on a US coin. That said, I've seen a high relief next to a regular Saint, and would you know, the regular Saint looks pretty bad. But I've also held an ultra high relief next to a high relief, and by golly, the ultra high relief is so incredible, it makes the high relief look like nothing special at all. But when I don't have the high relief variants at my disposal (which is usually the case), the regular design is quite pleasing indeed.

@BryceM said:
It’s the touch of the master that is missing.

.
They can't even copy something that already existed like the horrible AGE (St Gaudens) or draped bust (Jefferson's liberty)

@Zoins said:
They can when they want to.

Nope...Proportions are all wrong for esthetics.
A real artist takes certain "liberties" and doesn't render a engraving from an image.
.

Look at this one.
The eye is too big but it works.

Coins, like much else we elect to collectively announce about ourselves as a nation, are a commentary and expression of our ideals .

The end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries was a time of robust national self-confidence, a sentiment much reflected in our coinage. I share the implicit desire of some of our posters here for a revision of such idealism, as represented by all of the powerful assertions of Liberty and all her confidence and optimism that we expressed in issues such as the St. Gaudens and the SLH.

We may be experiencing the competing perspectives about what may constitute and properly express our ideals at this point of our history, in our modern coinage designs.

@Zoins said:
That one actually doesn’t really work for me. In addition to the eye, the chin is too strong and the jaw is too square. Reminds me of Barber’s work. I wouldn’t collect the series for aesthetics, but to each their own.

What about the chicken?

I also liked the Apollo 11 commem:

@kiyote said:
I still feel like we have a certain blindness to designs just ‘cause they are new.. i’ve really liked some of the designs that have come out recently.

That quarter looks like a gang member who has a tattoo under their eye.

@ReadyFireAim said:

@Zoins said:
Perhaps people should start picking at the St. Gaudens and Weinman originals

The original 1907 low relief was pretty bad.
Barber should receive as much credit for the coin as St. Gaudens.

I've never seen what Weinman gave the mint to work with.
They did become quite nice as a finished product.

Barber did do a good job on the Saint Gaudens low relief design. It is much better than his own circulated works and most of his commemorative works (except maybe the Pan Pac). As much as he (wrongly) gets a bad rap in this hobby as a villain, he knew the technical limitations and how to work with them. Barber also probably understood that Saint Gaudens design is a masterpiece, his estate contained many 1907 UHR's. There has been a lot of falsehoods about Barber over the years, but I digress.

More artists than collectors. Good luck there.

@ReadyFireAim said:

@Zoins said:
That's a nice one. I wish they made it into a coin...

Now THAT aviator design would be a guaranteed sell out for the mint!

@Zoins said:

@ReadyFireAim said:

@Zoins said:

Many classic designs actually aren’t > that great from an aesthetics point > of view.

So true!

@crazyhounddog said:
As long as the humanity has left the building I won’t expect much. Everything is done by computers now a days. From the design all the way down to the cutting of the dies are done by machine and I for one don’t like it. I want hands on again.

This is certainly the view I have also. The older designs... were engraved by hand, giving a personal touch, with nuances and minute imperfections that ended up giving the coin character and warmth.

In contrast, I find the modern renditions rather sterile... while CAD programs can certainly aid in moving elements around to balance designs, and experiment with many designs and concepts, they tend to make things too 'perfect' and thus the sterile bland feel. And of course the trend for politically correct themes/continual focus do not help either (IMO).