A scathing criticism of American coinage ... in 1855

9 posts
We often look at older coins with admiration, but in their days they could be criticized quite fiercely. Here is a scathing criticism of the symbolic and artistic value of American coinage written in 1855:

The Crayon - "Our Coinage"

Do you agree?

I have somewhere in my PDFs a note by R. W. MacLachlan who complains about the monotony of Canadian coinage and looks forward to the day when it will show meaningful allegories rather than just the value and date inside a wreath.
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Quote: "Camerinvs"
​I have somewhere in my PDFs a note by R. W. MacLachlan who complains about the monotony of Canadian coinage and looks forward to the day when it will show meaningful allegories rather than just the value and date inside a wreath.
​Looks like Mr. MacLachlan got his wish in 1937. (8

To be fair to the author in 1855, you can only depict a personification of Liberty within a ring of 13 stars so many times before it starts to get a little repetitive... I recall Theodore Roosevelt's own lamentations that US coinage was boring half a century later. So perhaps it's due to his influence that between 1909 and 1921 every circulating US denomination got a redesign? That generation of US coins is my favourite, aesthetically speaking.
Like the author, I am not impressed by the Seated Liberty series ─ by neither the obverse nor the reverse.

It's true that things improved greatly later. I like the Barber issues, but also what came after until about the 1930s. And then there are the Washington quarters which I have always disliked.

I'm not sure Mr. McLachlan (whose name I misspelled because of an old text where his name was misspelled) lived to see the 1935-1937 Canadian designs, unless he lived to be 90 since he was born in 1845.
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I agree, seated Liberty was boring, the same design with a few slight modifications sat on all coins from the Half Dime to the Dollar from 1836 to 1891 (Well 1877 for the dollar, but the Morgan was not much better). I have to say I was not really a fan of the Barber designs either.

The early 20th century coins were much nicer, the Buffalo nickel, Mercury Dimes, Standing Quarters and Walkers along with piece are masterpieces and then you have the gold culminating in the St Gaudens $20.

If it helps, the British 3d, 6d and 1/- up to 1887 (Well 1910 and 1926 for the 6d and 3d) were boring and plain. But they had some gorgeous half crowns and the Last Victoria series (1893 - 1901) was just beautiful for the larger silver coins.
I love coins
I guess we're lucky in "the colonies" to have always had gorgeous coins.
Well.... Maybe in New Zealand, but the Australian series was a little plain early on and the South African tickeys and sprats never really grabbed me.

I think every country has had beautiful coins and ugly ones. American coins early on were plain, but their crudeness and naivety coupled with the Youthful idealism (Young bandanna wearing Liberty's and happy eagles spreading their wings) gave them charm. The Gobrecht sitting Liberty coins were very plain and mechanical mid 19th century industrial designs, the earlier coins had the late 18th/early 19th century homemade charm about them and the early 20th century artistic explosion was nice. I agree too that recent US coins with the exception of commem quarters and new Jefferson Nickels, are dull.

If I look at UK my other great country, some of the Celtic and Roman coins are a lot of fun, but Medieval, Tudor and the milled coinage of 1662 - 1815 is very dull, the same quatrefoil of shield - yay! St George and the Dragon is nice, but British coins to me only became eyecatching between that gorgeous 1893 series through to the end of KGV, the KGVI designs are plain and the later 6d and 1/- (1949 onwards) are just plain lazy and boring.

But please, everyone here, this is just my opinion and I am agreeing with whoever wrote that article in 1854/55. You all may have very different opinions to mine and I respect that.T.T
I love coins
With regard to the Barber design, I like the combination of the obverse and reverse on the quarter and half dollars. I see it as an improvement over earlier designs, though admittedly not particularly meaningful.

I suppose new nations have a hard time finding meaningful designs for their coinage. The USA were borne out of overthrowing the British monarchy, so they basically started from scratches. In some ways, France went through the same thing. Once you overthrow the monarchy, how do you represent the new values? How do you represent "Liberty", if not by an anonymous female head?

Some other nations (or rather: nation-states, which rarely correspond to a nation) had to find designs which accommodated all member communities. This, it seems to me, almost guarantees blandness. The best example is the euro, but I am thinking also of the coinage of the European nation that has been neutral since 1815. For sure, political stability and popular participation are more important than coin designs!

In the case of the UK, I would distinguish between the blandness of a design and the repetitiveness. I love the quatrefoil of shields, but of course it was repeated over several centuries.

By about the middle of the 19th century, many (if not most?) European nations went with the value-inside-wreath reverse, which was a huge step backwards so far as aesthetics are concerned.

Many British colonies, including dominions, fared particularly poorly. Canada adopted the value-within-wreath design until 1937. Some other colonies were given most minimalist designs, such as Newfoundland and the Straits Settlements. I must say I do not necessarily dislike some of those minimalist designs. I like the Newfoundland Victoria 20¢ for the thickness of the reverse legend and, for some reason, the Straits 50¢. The Victorian rupee for India, too, is IMHO a wonderful design.
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Quote: "Camerinvs"​In the case of the UK, I would distinguish between the blandness of a design and the repetitiveness. I love the quatrefoil of shields, but of course it was repeated over several centuries.



They're kind of repetitive, but ​I really do like the cruciform shields on most of the early milled issues (from roughly 1662 to 1787).

They're mostly the same from a glance, but you can really trace the history of the English/British monarchy through the subtle changes- e.g. the lion of Orange replacing the Order of the Garter in the middle on William III's coins, then the cohabitation of the English and Scottish arms after the Act of Union, then the introduction of the Hanoverian arms after 1714. And of course this continues with the modern milled cruciforms, such as the omission of the French shield after the British claim to the French throne was dropped in 1802.
Exactly, and specialist of medieval coinages often start with the shield or coat-of-arms to identify the provenience of a coin with poorly preserved legends. We have a few friends here on Numista who do so.
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