Maybe this is old news to some, but I just spotted, on http://www.quarterdesigns.com the U.S. Mint potential designs for the 2007 quarters. I’m curious what you folks think. Here are my comments:
Montana: A beautiful crop. I think I’d most like the bison skull one with an Indian staff or feather added; my second choice would be the one below that…I don’t know how they managed to convey a “Big Sky” feel on a coin, but that design does it. I don’t think the state outline works, though, it seems to be cramping the Big Sky feeling. Surprise: no Little Big Horn-related proposals.
Washington: Don’t realy care for any of these too much. I guess I’d go with the Native American stylized orca, as it’s very different from anything else we’ve had on quarters until now, but it feels empty. Maybe if they put a state outline in the background of that, I’d like it better. Surprise: no Space Needle.
Idaho: Big surprise: no potato! I like that Sawtooth Mountains design, with the river forming the state outline at the bottom.
Wyoming: Nice ones, except for the plain silhouette. I wish they could put both Old Faithful and the rodeo cowboy on the quarter. If I had to choose from amongst the ones depicted, I’d go with the cowboy with that Grand Tetons silhouette in the background.
Utah: I love the Golden Spike (even though it looks like a disaster is about to occur). The snowboarder is also a nice, original image, though I hate the inscription, which seems too much like a tourism advertisement.
Montana has a nice selection. I favor the elk. The state outline one is pretty lame, and the river and mountain one just doesn’t lend itself to the scale of a coin. I could go for the bison skull too.
Washington has only one I like, the salmon and Mt Rainier. The Indian orca is interesting and would be unique, but it looks too much like a cartoon character for my taste.
Poor Idaho- what a poor crop this is. The river forming the state outline at its mouth is neat, but at coin scale how would we know? The falcon head is my pick of the litter. The upper left looks like someone crumpled up some sheet music in the mountains, and the musically inspired one on the bottom right would have been corny 50 years ago and is positively lame now.
Wyoming has a nice cowboy figure and the center one is a good choice. That Old Faithful just doesn’t lend itself to coinage.
Utah has two I could live with. The beehive is a nice drawing and the railroad one is historically significant and shown well. Word to Utah- your Olympics are over. Done. Not coming back. Finished. No need to put a snowboarder on your coin.
This is a really good year for designs, considering some of the fugly designs that have made it in the past.
Montana - They’re all nice enough, but none of them really stand out either. Washington - All of these are good. I’ll probably be in the minority here, but I really, really like the stylized Native American design. Its unique style will make it a standout. Idaho - None of them are that good, although none are outstandingly bad, either. Wyoming - I take back my “no fugly” comment. The top two are awful. The other three are OK, but again nothing stands out. Utah - Beehive: Plain and boring, but not ugly. Crossroads: OK, but not a compelling design. Snowboarder: This is the best design of the three, but is it really appropriate to represent the entire state?
I’m not wild about any of these. Too many of them suffer from what I call the AND AND AND syndrome. For example, take one of the Idaho ones: some kind of bird AND an outline of the state AND the motto (esto perpetua, meaning “lasts friggin’ forever,” I guess). To me this suggests a committee that couldn’t decide among competing designs, so found a way to shoehorn them all in.
It’s a hard thing to get right – the design has to be simple but not too simple, with some but not too much negative space. Some of these coins have excessive fine detail, which really doesn’t work well on a coin less than an inch across.
I also think that the poor results generally from this state-quarter exercise illustrate that the concept was flawed from the beginning. The fact is, most states don’t have a single iconic image to represent them, so they have to cobble together three or four things, most of which don’t say anything to anyone. Reverting to that Idaho example, does anyone know what that bird is, or what it has to do with Idaho? Does anyone recognize the motto or know what it means? Oftentimes the most iconic thing about a state is its outline (unless you’re Colorado), but really, how banal is that?
Even worse are those states that do have something iconic, but couldn’t leave well enough alone. The prime offender here is South Dakota. Think South Dakota, think Mt. Rushmore – all well and good. So why do you have to have an enormous Chinese pheasant flying over it? (And incidentally, could the modeling of the presidents on this coin be any more terrible)?
I think the lesson here is that coins should be designed by professional coin designers. Otherwise you end up with a whole series of numismatic disasters that are depressing to look at. I’d be interested in samclem’s take on it.
The '07 ones are official finalists, but not the '08 ones. My thoughts on the 2007 finalists:
Montana: The one with the sunset and the state outline is really nice. The angle of the words “Big Sky Country” on the one with the mountain and river make it look like the opening credits to a Star Wars film. Episode VII: Big Sky Country! Now that Darth Vader has been defeated, Luke Skywalker has discovered a new evil empire in the mysterious land of Montana!
Washington: The one with the state outline is my favorite. I know there are a lot of quarters with state outlines on them, but I like this one. The Native American fish just plain scares me.
Idaho: The river one is my favorite. I agree with BobLibDem that the plains one looks like sheet music in black and white, but probably wouldn’t in quarter form. I realize “And here we have Idaho winning her way to fame” is the first line of the state song, but for some reason, I imagine Howard Cosell reading that line.
Wyoming: Four out of five of the finalists have the cowboy-and-bronco logo which is a registered trademark of the State of Wyoming. The two silhouette ones are the nicest. The dark background on the one with the state outline is easier on the eyes, but both would look different as a coin. The water shooting up from Old Faithful looks too much like a guy with a big forehead looking to the east. Love that logo. To steal a line from Lore Sjoberg regarding the state’s license plates, “The Embossed Rodeo Cowboy State” would make a better slogan than “The Equality State.”
Utah: The snowboarder looks too much like one of those “kewl” advertising characters they use to sell processed crap to children. You could put “Brillo Pads Only 99¢” on that one for all I care, kids would probably buy them. Oh, and “The World is Welcome?” More like “The World Was Welcome.” Don’t tell anybody, rest of America, but the Salt Lake Olympics ended four years ago. I think the beehive is the nicest one, mainly because the two trains look like they’re going to crash into each other.
I like the elk and the bison skull for Montana… I don’t really like a lot of text on these things, but I like the phrase “Big Sky” so much that I think the “Georgia O’Keeffe quarter” gets my vote.
Washington: I don’t like the gigantic fish and apples laying all over the state. Just too weird. The fish jumping over Mt. Rainier is okay. The orca is a little empty-looking, but it’s stylish. I think that’s my favorite.
Idaho: What’s with #4? Is it a piece of money, or is it an essay? I want to like the falcon, but it looks like it’s going to carry Idaho away. (And would anybody notice until some numismatist said “Hey, that’s only 49 state quarters?”) So I have to vote for the mountains and the river. The crops look too lumpy.
Wyoming: One of these things is not like the other/One of these things does not belong… I vote for mountains + cowboy.
Utah: Blah; Ha; and Jeez. The golden spike would be a good choice, but they just had to put a trainwreck on the quarter. (Symbolism?) I guess I want the deadly swarm quarter.
Idahoan checking in here to comment on the proposed designs for my state’s quarter:
“Farmland Tapestry”- too plain and boring-looking. This one’s on the bottom of my list.
“Peregrine Falcon” - Not bad, but too much empty space. I rank this as #3.
“Sawtooth Range”- this is the one I would pick first. It portrays the scenic beauty of our state.
“State Song Lyrics”- The design is okay, but the lyrics just seem out of place, not congruent with the rest of the design. This would be second choice.
As for potatoes, they’re great to eat, especially baked potatoes, but come on, we’ve been associated with potatoes for too long. Our license plates do a good enough job promoting the spuds.
All of Montana’s are good. My personal favorite is the one with the elk.
Washington has two good ones, neither of which is the scary Native American whale. I pick the one with the state outline as the best.
For Idaho, I like the one where the river forms the outline of the state. That’s a clever idea. Plus, I’m pleasantly surprised that none of the designs involves potatoes.
For Wyoming, take the fourth design, the one with a fence behind the cowboy & horse. Incidentally, the Old Faithful design is not good. It looks more like Wyoming is getting bombed.
For Utah, I like the railroad one. I just like trains The beehive is OK, but please God please don’t let them choose the snowboarder.
As for the 2008 quarters, Oklahoma and New Mexico really need some better designs. Oklahoma wins the award for “Most Pathos in a Single Coin.” And does New Mexico really want to be known as the Atomic Bomb State? :dubious:
No quarter for J.P., but there is a move afoot to cast a bronze statue of him and place it in a Seattle park.
As for the quarters, the newspaper at which I work held an unscientific telephone poll; the majority of readers picked the design with Rainier and the jumping salmon. The state is expected to do a similar Web vote later this year to determine the recommendation to the mint.
My thoughts on the orca are that it would have been nice do have a design honoring our state’s tribal heritage, but I don’t think this design pulled it off well. It’s a bad imitation of Salish Coast design. Still, it’s far better than some of the existing quarter designs involving odd-shaped rock faces and wedges of cheese.
The beehive is OK, but please God please don’t let them choose the snowboarder.
