I like 'em, myself. The asymmetry appeals to me.
What I liked best about the coins in England when we were there was the thickness of the 1 pound coin. Rather than doing what we Yanks have been doing forever with our "silver dollars" and making the coin bigger in diameter (to the point where it's impractical to carry one in one's pocket) or so like a quarter you can barely tell the difference, they went with a coin that is distinctly different (to the point where you can easily tell it from other coins just by the feel), yet practical.
Redwolf
new coins for UK
-
Walden
- Chiffmaster General
- Posts: 11030
- Joined: Thu May 09, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Location: Coal mining country in the Eastern Oklahoma hills.
- Contact:
They remind me of the new nickels. This incomplete off-kelter thing seems to be the trend among the trendy mints.
Last edited by Walden on Thu Apr 03, 2008 8:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reasonable person
Walden
Walden
-
MTGuru
- Posts: 18663
- Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:45 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Location: San Diego, CA
Natürlich! Don't make me come over there with my bearskin and club ...Bloomfield wrote:Symetrie ist die Ästhetik der Primitiven.
Vivat diabolus in musica! MTGuru's (old) GG Clips / Blackbird Clips
Joel Barish: Is there any risk of brain damage?
Dr. Mierzwiak: Well, technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage.
Joel Barish: Is there any risk of brain damage?
Dr. Mierzwiak: Well, technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage.
-
avanutria
- Posts: 4750
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2001 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: A long time chatty Chiffer but have been absent for almost two decades. Returned in 2022 and still recognize some names! I also play anglo concertina now.
- Location: Eugene, OR
- Contact:
The shapes aren't changing - the 50p and 20p coins are those shapes currently. The colours haven't been changed either.The Weekenders wrote:Wish they did closeups. I think they are interesting looking but it surprises me to see non-round coins when you think of vending machines and such. I assume it's way easier to accomodate a round coin than angular...
If I ever see these in circulation I'll take some closeups for you. I don't recall hearing anything about this in 2005, strangely, and I like coins so I would have remembered.
-
pancelticpiper
- Posts: 5322
- Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2006 7:25 am
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: Playing Scottish and Irish music in California for 45 years.
These days many discussions are migrating to Facebook but I prefer the online chat forum format. - Location: WV to the OC
These new British coins remind me of some of the new US coins and notes.
I think it shows the influence of the "clip art" approach to design, rather than a traditional organic approach which respects the format.
If you look at the old US notes, each was a unique, lovely, balanced work of art which was carefully designed to fit its format. Each of the four corners of EACH denomination was unique.
Then the new notes came out, with their clip-art look. It's the look you get whenever somebody who doesn't know anything about design sits at a computer using some kind of software that allows them to import clip art images, change their size and orientation, etc. "Oooh! I can make this President's head REALLY big! And look! I can move it over here or over there or anywhere I want!" All with no sense of proportion, balance, negative space, format, or any other artistic sensibility.
Now, are the results interesting? Certainly they are novel. But will they be pleasing in the long run? Only time will tell.
I think it shows the influence of the "clip art" approach to design, rather than a traditional organic approach which respects the format.
If you look at the old US notes, each was a unique, lovely, balanced work of art which was carefully designed to fit its format. Each of the four corners of EACH denomination was unique.
Then the new notes came out, with their clip-art look. It's the look you get whenever somebody who doesn't know anything about design sits at a computer using some kind of software that allows them to import clip art images, change their size and orientation, etc. "Oooh! I can make this President's head REALLY big! And look! I can move it over here or over there or anywhere I want!" All with no sense of proportion, balance, negative space, format, or any other artistic sensibility.
Now, are the results interesting? Certainly they are novel. But will they be pleasing in the long run? Only time will tell.
-
buddhu
- Posts: 4092
- Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2003 3:14 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: In a ditch, just down the road from the pub
- Contact:
They are surprisingly imaginative for what they are. Overall, I am astounded to say that I am very impressed.
I was expecting a load of superficial changes or a total change of coinage that would have confused the heck out of senior citizens.
These are really very good indeed.
I was expecting a load of superficial changes or a total change of coinage that would have confused the heck out of senior citizens.
These are really very good indeed.
And whether the blood be highland, lowland or no.
And whether the skin be black or white as the snow.
Of kith and of kin we are one, be it right, be it wrong.
As long as our hearts beat true to the lilt of a song.
And whether the skin be black or white as the snow.
Of kith and of kin we are one, be it right, be it wrong.
As long as our hearts beat true to the lilt of a song.
-
mutepointe
- Posts: 8151
- Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2006 10:16 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: kanawha county, west virginia
- Contact:
-
Nanohedron
- Moderatorer
- Posts: 38239
- Joined: Wed Dec 18, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: Been a fluter, citternist, and uilleann piper; committed now to the way of the harp.
Oh, yeah: also a mod here, not a spammer. A matter of opinion, perhaps. - Location: Lefse country
Thanks for pointing that out; I was unaware of it. I do think that the overall effect, to my eyes, of referring to ancient hand-minted coinage is particularly enhanced by the seven-sided profile. I have no idea if the designer had any of this in mind, but it sure came out that way for me.avanutria wrote:The shapes aren't changing - the 50p and 20p coins are those shapes currently. The colours haven't been changed either.
I imagine this minting will be more collected than circulated.
"If you take music out of this world, you will have nothing but a ball of fire." - Balochi musician
-
Innocent Bystander
- Posts: 6816
- Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:51 pm
- antispam: No
- Location: Directly above the centre of the Earth (UK)
People always hoard new coins when they come out. The mint has to allow for that. But they'll be in currency soon enough.
I'm just amused that people will be able to say "Heads or harps" (because of the partial harp on the penny and the ten pence piece) just like they do in Ireland.
Must admit that the Argentinian money looks like the truck tokens the British Mills used to issue, so you had to buy from the Mill shop when you got "paid".
I'm just amused that people will be able to say "Heads or harps" (because of the partial harp on the penny and the ten pence piece) just like they do in Ireland.
Must admit that the Argentinian money looks like the truck tokens the British Mills used to issue, so you had to buy from the Mill shop when you got "paid".
Wizard needs whiskey, badly!
-
pancelticpiper
- Posts: 5322
- Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2006 7:25 am
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: Playing Scottish and Irish music in California for 45 years.
These days many discussions are migrating to Facebook but I prefer the online chat forum format. - Location: WV to the OC
As an artist, coin design is just simply interesting to me.
I followed (and am still following) the progress of the US "State Quarters".
For those who don't know, a few years ago the US Mint began making quarters (25p) dedicated to the various US States.
They came out with four new State designs each year, so of course it will take several years to get through all 50 States. The State quarters are issued in order of the date of each State's admission to the Union. Alaska and Hawai'i will of course be last.
Being in California, I followed the progress of the design selection process for the California quarter.
First, designs were accepted from anyone.
Then 40 or so of the "best" (I'm not sure who picked the 40 out of the thousands submitted) were put up on a website for a year, and anyone could vote for the design they liked.
I followed the voting, and was dismayed that people seemed to be unduly influenced by the way in the which the design was presented rather than by the actual design itself. I say this because the designs were presented in a variety of ways: some were sketches, some were done by using "clip art", and some were beautifully rendered by some computer program that made it look like a finished, three-dimensional coin.
Invariably the designs rendered thus were the top vote-getters, while far superior designs which happened to be simple sketches got few votes. (Artists are used to looking at a simple "thumbnail" sketch and visualising how the finished product will look, but evidently the general public is not.)
The range of design ideas and styles was enormous.
Many displayed a lack of awareness of the format- a coin only about an inch across- and were cluttered with all sorts of things (one design had the Golden Gate bridge, and mountains, and palm trees, and a Space Shuttle, and movie film canisters, and a California Condor, and a gold miner '49 panning for gold! The designer needed to be reminded that it's a coin, not a mural).
The best designs, of course, were the simplest: the Golden Gate bridge, a giant tree (the world's largest and oldest living things are native to California, and I don't mean washed-up actresses!).
One particularly nice design simply had waves and the sun (too bad there's nothing specific to California in that).
Perhaps the most bizarre design had Queen Califa hanging ten on a surfboard.
Anyhow the three top votegetters went to the Governor, who selected the final design.
It was John Muir hiking in Yosemite valley.
But, the final actual coin was designed by the engravers at the US mint who, apparently not realising that Yosemite is a valley, left the valley walls out, so that Yosemite's Half Dome looks more like Mount Fuji rising out of a vast plain.
I don't know what Hawai'i will go with. I'm hoping for a picture of a humuhumnukunukuapua'a.
West Virginia's is just a bridge. There ain't nothin' else there. I know.
One state- is it New Hampshire?- is perhaps unique in that its quarter is probably the only one to feature something that no longer exists: a rock that supposedly resembles a human face, that fell down a couple years after the coin was issued. (Or so I'm told.)
I followed (and am still following) the progress of the US "State Quarters".
For those who don't know, a few years ago the US Mint began making quarters (25p) dedicated to the various US States.
They came out with four new State designs each year, so of course it will take several years to get through all 50 States. The State quarters are issued in order of the date of each State's admission to the Union. Alaska and Hawai'i will of course be last.
Being in California, I followed the progress of the design selection process for the California quarter.
First, designs were accepted from anyone.
Then 40 or so of the "best" (I'm not sure who picked the 40 out of the thousands submitted) were put up on a website for a year, and anyone could vote for the design they liked.
I followed the voting, and was dismayed that people seemed to be unduly influenced by the way in the which the design was presented rather than by the actual design itself. I say this because the designs were presented in a variety of ways: some were sketches, some were done by using "clip art", and some were beautifully rendered by some computer program that made it look like a finished, three-dimensional coin.
Invariably the designs rendered thus were the top vote-getters, while far superior designs which happened to be simple sketches got few votes. (Artists are used to looking at a simple "thumbnail" sketch and visualising how the finished product will look, but evidently the general public is not.)
The range of design ideas and styles was enormous.
Many displayed a lack of awareness of the format- a coin only about an inch across- and were cluttered with all sorts of things (one design had the Golden Gate bridge, and mountains, and palm trees, and a Space Shuttle, and movie film canisters, and a California Condor, and a gold miner '49 panning for gold! The designer needed to be reminded that it's a coin, not a mural).
The best designs, of course, were the simplest: the Golden Gate bridge, a giant tree (the world's largest and oldest living things are native to California, and I don't mean washed-up actresses!).
One particularly nice design simply had waves and the sun (too bad there's nothing specific to California in that).
Perhaps the most bizarre design had Queen Califa hanging ten on a surfboard.
Anyhow the three top votegetters went to the Governor, who selected the final design.
It was John Muir hiking in Yosemite valley.
But, the final actual coin was designed by the engravers at the US mint who, apparently not realising that Yosemite is a valley, left the valley walls out, so that Yosemite's Half Dome looks more like Mount Fuji rising out of a vast plain.
I don't know what Hawai'i will go with. I'm hoping for a picture of a humuhumnukunukuapua'a.
West Virginia's is just a bridge. There ain't nothin' else there. I know.
One state- is it New Hampshire?- is perhaps unique in that its quarter is probably the only one to feature something that no longer exists: a rock that supposedly resembles a human face, that fell down a couple years after the coin was issued. (Or so I'm told.)
-
mutepointe
- Posts: 8151
- Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2006 10:16 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: kanawha county, west virginia
- Contact:
O O. You got me wound up about West Virginia's coin. We were given two options, the New River Bridge and a quilt pattern. I worked diligently to stack the deck and promoting the quilt. Folks said they didn't see what was so West Virginian about quilts. I always vote for the losers.
Rose tint my world. Keep me safe from my trouble and pain.
白飞梦
白飞梦