During a meeting held on July 21, 2011, the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) reviewed the design candidates provided by the United States Mint for commemorative $5 gold coins and silver dollars to be issued in 2012 for the bicentennial of the writing of the Star Spangled Banner.
The US Mint provided ten different obverse and eight different reverse design candidates for the $5 gold coin, and six different obverse and nine different reverse design candidates for the silver dollar. According to the authorizing legislation, the designs for the coins “shall be emblematic of the War of 1812 and particularly the Battle for Baltimore that formed the basis for the Star-Spangled Banner.”
The final designs for the coins are to be selected by the Treasury of the Secretary after consultation with the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts, and review by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee.
For the obverse of the $5 gold coin, the CFA recommended alternative 8, indicating that it presented “the most coherent and balanced composition with the best configuration of text and quality of drawing.” They did suggest adding an identifying inscription “Fort McHenry”. Alternative 8 was suggested for the reverse design of the coin “for its simple abstraction of the flag”. The commission did suggest using a circular border format used within one of the other alternatives.
For the obverse of the silver dollar, alternative 1 was recommended. The CFA commended the “unusually high quality of the drawing”, but suggested removing the smaller ship in the background and using the text “War at Sea” rather than “Privateers”. Alternative 6 was recommended for the reverse design. Suggestions were made to move the inscriptions to the circumference of the coin and to coordinate the typefaces used for the obverse and reverse of the coin.
General comments were provided by commission members on the design candidates for coins and medals provided by the US Mint. Many of these comments echoed similar observations and recommendations provided during other reviews. CFA Secretary Thomas E. Luebke summarized commission members comments as follows:
They reiterated their preference for simplicity in the design of these small objects, noting the excessive number of design elements in most of the submitted alternatives. They also reiterated their concern with the quality of the artwork and composition, encouraging the Mint to attract outside artists to the design process. Finally, they emphasized a preference for placing the standardized information of the coin, such as mottoes and denomination, toward the outer edge in a readily identifiable circumferential zone which would typically be separate from the central design elements; the typeface of the text should also be coordinated between the obverse and reverse.
Other $5 Gold Coin Obverse Design Candidates
Other $5 Gold Coin Reverse Design Candidates
Other Silver Dollar Obverse Design Candidates
Other Silver Dollar Reverse Design Candidates
Not impressed with the designs.
I still do not see the point in the majority of these coins. Sure you pay a high premium on the front end but history says these coins will not maintain that premium. You’d be much better off spending your money on rare gold and silver coins that actually have intrinsic value, just my two cents.
Do you think the ATB coins are also pointless? Both the bullion and numismatics?
Those designs look like the work of a fourth grader! The u.s. mint should look north to the Canadian mint for some inspiration.
I agree, Canada seems to have the best designs with Australia to follow.
What? Colorized coins? Cheesy as they get, imagine inspecting your colorized coins under a magnifier or loupe – what would you be inspecting, counting color dots? No way, thanks.
…oh, if I may add, if the Canadian or Australian mints had a go at the ATB, the obligatory pad printing colorized ATBs is what you are most likely to get – that will be yucks big time.
I think the point of these coins is to commemorate events. From the standpoint of the mint, they are not making them for people to make a profit 20 years down the road. They are making them for individuals to collect. Someone out there gains satisfaction from purchasing these coins and adding them to their collection where they will remain for possibly the rest of their life. Now all the mint needs to do is get the sales and marketing department out of the design decision process so the real artists can come up with the beautiful designs that we all know they can produce. The designs the mint has been putting out just don’t bring satisfaction to a whole lot of collectors any more. The guidelines the artists are restricted to force these designs. The PC doesn’t help either. Symbolism is what is needed. So what if not everyone gets the symbolism art first, let them use their brains to figure it out. If they still can’t figure it out, they can look it up on the computer where the majority of people are almost everyday anyway. These aren’t the worst designs choices I have seen from the mint though. There are a couple that don’t look to bad. At least we are not picking the least ugly out of all the other ugly ones.