Should the US create "City View" coins?
FrankH
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I really like the city view thalers and such from other lands.
Should the US create "City View" coins?
This is a private poll: no-one will see what you voted for.
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City views are cool and it would be an interesting concept to try for a US coin or medal.
Would you pick by population or by the iconicness of the city?
Top 10 by population .....
New York City, NY (Population: 8,622,357)
Los Angeles, CA (Population: 4,085,014)
Chicago, IL (Population: 2,670,406)
Houston, TX (Population: 2,378,146)
Phoenix, AZ (Population: 1,743,469)
Philadelphia, PA (Population: 1,590,402)
San Antonio, TX (Population: 1,579,504)
San Diego, CA (Population: 1,469,490)
Dallas, TX (Population: 1,400,337)
San Jose, CA (Population: 1,036,242)
Would look like a bunch of blocks on a coin.
Depends on who did the engraving.
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This is what the blocks of SF looked like a century ago as rendered by Louis-Alexandre Bottée.
City or town view coins/medals are often very attractive. However, you see them most frequently on large format items. They would not work well on anything smaller than a half dollar, in my opinion.
Getting Congress to agree on “city view” coinage legislation would be another story.
I think Congress could get it done since it would show off the cities they are representing.
They would be a welcome replacement for current circulation designs.
Exotic denominations would be more interesting
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
May be these?
18 Exotic Places to Travel Right in the U.S.
Here's one I like that's a bit different.
So called dollar.
Guess you could call it a DESTROYED city view.
Even on that medal it’s muddled. Now put that on a low relief clad coin and see what it becomes.
Plenty of iconic city views to consider, IMO. Peace Roy
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The idea is just to see what it doesn't have to be just a bunch of blocks. No need to use the actual old design.
I think it could be good if they selected an artistic icon of the subject city... Most cities have a special feature of some artistic merit. Cheers, RickO
Coin, no. High relief medal done artistically, sure.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Agree with messydesk. Not on a coin... but a rectangular rounded/curved bar of some sort.... would be interesting... in high relief!
This would be a great subject for a commemorative coin series. Use the same large 5 ozt silver planchets used for the ATB series. If they were artistic and not grossly over-priced, I'd buy them if for no other reason than to put away some silver.
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"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I like the idea but for it to look good it would need to be high relief, which causes a problem for a circulating coin. Thus, they would need to be either commems or medals. I like @PerryHall 's idea of using the 5 oz. ATB type planchets.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
Could be incuse.
Here's a city view on an itty bitty coin.
It can be done.
Much more than this and it would be hard to see on something small enough to circulate.
I keep hearing about how half dollars don't circulate because people think they're too big. Need to scale it down to a quarter.
I don't believe anyone's saying it can't be done... more along the lines of it would be hard to do well. It would be great to see real pieces of art like the one you posted and some others shown here, perhaps a true throwback done using actual imagination and hand held engraving tools rather than Chuck E Cheese quality pieces executed with a CAD program.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
I'm not voting because I hate terribly biased polls.
That said, if designed to circulate, I don't see the US Mint being able to produce a real cityscape that looks even halfway decent on blanks with current compositions and levels of relief.
I don't think a city scape theme would work on a small coin like a quarter which is why I suggested a much larger coin that would be a non-circulating bullion coin or commemorative coin such as the 5 oz ATB "pucks".
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
They have done just about everything on the quarter.
Maybe retire the Kennedy Half or its reverse.
Maybe a space exploration direction to tie in with JFK
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Easy to do it with crypto and an NFT
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
There are several problems with such a proposal.
First, the concept of "city view thalers" are kind of unfashionable; that trend came and went before the American Revolution. Yes, you can find a few outliers continuing the tradition afterwards, but for the most part, they'd stopped doing them by 1800.
Second, and a main reason why they stopped: cities are no longer as immutable as they were prior to the Industrial Revolution. They change and grow, sometimes quite rapidly. My own hometown, a "city view" from 10 years ago is now mostly unrecognizable, and a "city view" from my youth would look like a completely different (and much smaller) city. Making a coin with "today's city view" would be pointless and probably unwanted in a few years time when the city looks completely different. Unless, of course, you deliberately chose "historic" cities that have anti-development ordinances in place.
Third, and related: modern cities are simply too big. A "city view thaler" was supposed to show all the major prominent landmarks of the city - kind of like a cross between a tourist map and a postcard. A "city view" that focuses on the city's CBD will omit most of the residents, and probably a large proportion of the city's attractions.
Fourth, is the sheer scope of such a project for a country as large as America. Most city view thalers were made by German city-states; they only had one single city within their territory to promote, so everybody in that city-state and beyond could support and appreciate coins depicting that city. But there are 1561 "cities" in the US, according to Quora. Even a "one from each state" series would not scratch the surface of the required number for comprehensiveness, and such a restriction might also cause division and friction for states with multiple large/famous/attractive cities. Would California want to put Los Angeles, San Francisco or some other, more neutral city on its coin? Or how about Texas, with Houston vs Dallas vs San Antonio vs Austin?
Finally... for the big cities, most of them all look kind of the same-same. Sure, there are a few cities with weird, uniquely distinctive, city-defining architecture (yes, St Louis, I'm thinking of you when I say that) but most modern city skylines tend to all look much the same from a distance. Would it be a popular series, with lots of people trying to "complete the set", however big the set would become, if they all look pretty much the same? Popularity would be key, especially if they're NCLT and not circulation coins.
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The 5-oz silver pucks sounds promising.
I doubt a circulating coin would work. It would be too small, low relief for economic reasons, and maybe even unfashionable. But a 5-oz planchet for special strikes has a lot more promise, I would like to see what you could do with that, that is a nice big shiny canvas.
For the set of cities, you would want to pick some that have visually distinctive landmarks, and probably some artistic license to show landmarks in one view. New York (Manhattan and/or Statue of Liberty), Philadelphia, DC, Chicago lake view, St Louis, San Francisco, maybe Seattle with Rainier in the background, could be choices.
I don't disagree with any of them. If the Mint were to start a "City View Thaler" program, regardless of the wisdom in doing so, the views would have to be more distant in many cases so as to capture what might be a recognizable "postcard" view. In some cases, that would be easy, in others not so much, and that's just the 10 most populous cities. I'd be interested to see what they could produce and would hope they'd make interesting high relief medals. I'd likely not actually buy any, however, thus contributing to their inevitable unpopularity.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I believe with the right design it’s possible and should be done.
The logos of the cities would be a good place to start. Many have identifying landmarks within the city on the signs when you enter.