Later this year, the nickel will have a reverse design depicting the Pacific Ocean to end the Westward Journey Nickel Series (™, I think). The quote on it was from William Clark: “Ocean in view! O the joy!” Actually, he wrote “Ocian.” The Mint corrected his spelling. Why I point this out, I don’t know.
Also, according to a recent Snopes article, the portion of the buffalo sticking out is not his full penis, but actually his foreskin. There was some foreskin on the original buffalo nickel, but no one cared, I guess, unlike that quarter with the lady’s boob hanging out…
Exactly. When you draw “an eagle displayed,” it comes out like that. It’s not meant to be a natural eagle any more than the Lions of England are meant to be natural lions, or fleurs-de-lys are meant to be actual lilies. (And let me tell you about the heraldic tygre someday.)
Actually, from the looks of it, it’s more like Thomas Jefferson on drugs. He has the vapid half smile of a man who just took a gigantic hit off his roommate’s bong.
I just have one pet peeve about American currency, but it’s a big one (I think it ate the others). You see, I used to work in Japanese tourism in Hawaii and part of my job was explaining American money to Japanese tourists. I also thing some of my English relatives may have been a bit confused about the money when they came to visit us. Therefore, I have one request for the U.S. Treasury Department:
Next time you redesign a coin, would you please put a number indicating how many cents it’s worth on the back of the coin?
Thank you. You see, I’ve spent far too much time explaining to visitors to that the U.S. that the dime is worth more than the nickel, even though it’s smaller. Take a look at the back of our coins. The quarter has “QUARTER DOLLAR” on the front of the coin; the dime has “ONE DIME” on the back of it; the nickel has “FIVE CENTS” on the back of it and the penny has “ONE CENT” on the back of it. I’d settle for spelling out “ten cents” and “twenty-five cents” on the back of the coins, but numbers are easier to read and understand.
Meh. I can’t get behind the OP much, as I generally like all the new designs (except for the NH quarter). It at least shows that the Treasury is thinking about design, rather than relying on the old, boring designs. I just wish they’d disontinue the dollar bill and bring back the Sackie. And maybe introduce the Twokie. We could learn something from the Canadians.
But for all you whiners, suppose we could commission artists, alive or dead, to design the new currency. What would a nickel look like if it were designed by Picasso? How about a cent by O’Keefe? The reverse of the one by Dali?
I got one of the new nickels as chance the other day, and that was the first thing I noticed! Cuttin’ it pretty close there, coin designer, I thought to myself. Almost like the stamping die (or whatever it’s called) was misaligned.
In 1916, the US Mint redesigned the dime, quarter and half dollar. These are about the best designs that have ever been on US coins. Of course, that’s my opinion.
The new Jefferson nickel design is, IMHO, the best designed obverse(front) to a US coin since 1916.
Who cares what a lifelike portrait looked like? Boring.
The funny thing is, I find the old designs to look more like decapitations than the new ones.
Yes, it’s a tight crop on the new design, but it crops in tight to all the important features of the face, all the features than give a face character: the brow, the eyes, the cheekbones, the nose, the mouth… The old design–now that looked like a disembodied head looking apathetically off the side of the coin. No emotion. Features too small to distinguish on a coin of that side. Boring, static, symmetrical composition. Pfft. The new coin has emotion and fire. It’s modern while staying within the bounds of classic graphic design. The close crop of the face is much better suited to the size of the coin. It doesn’t look haphazard at all–it’s a graphically sound composition. The only qualm I have is the handwritten “Liberty” looks a bit out of place. Otherwise, it’s an elegant coin.
