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This is a photo of the original design. Apparently there were more than 6000 entries including adults. The design was then refined by the coin artist David Lawrence. Don't get me wrong. I am very pleased for him and I think it is a totally fantastic for a 15 year old to win the competition. However, if I am honest, it really just look like the work of a (talented) schoolboy rather than a pro. I understand that he tried to be PC and so the leek, rose, thistle and shamrock are similar in size. But it just look odd for the leek to be the same size as say the shamrock. For me, the coronet is also out of proportion to the plants. The rose, thistle, shamrock and leek are somehow just sitting next to each other without any sort of interlinking. The quality of the engraving (which has nothing to do with his design) just doesn't do it for me. Then again, many of the modern designs also look rather poor. That's why I don't collect modern RM offerings!

The biggest advantage PCGS has, is that they are photographing the coin outside of the plastic. I have no idea what Spink is doing (also out of the plastic), but their images are awful. The truth is clearly somewhere in between. It is clear to see that the coin as photographed by Spink had PVC residue, and Atlas/PCGS likely actually saved the coin from being completely ruined. As for how PCGS manages to produce such "fantastic" photos, it is because they photograph coins, particularly proof coins, tilted into the light source. Thus, the surfaces are often completely blown out with light, hiding hairlines and other potential problems or things that a buyer would want to know/see. But, accentuating and overemphasizing color. Phil Arnold (the PCGS lead photographer, who developed the TrueView service line) is mostly interested in photographing coins from an "artistic" standpoint. He wants to show them in their best clothes. For those of us who are also numismatic photographers, Phil's photos are known in the business as the glamour shots of a coin. They are flattering and often hide surface attributes, but they sure are "pretty" (if you collect photographs, instead of coins!). Lastly, I will state that PCGS TrueView images are consistently and annoyingly red-shifted. They are not doing any "funny business" in Photoshop or in post processing (they have to photograph WAY too many coins per day to have time for that), but the lights they use and the white balance they use always shifts the colors and over-saturates the colors toward the higher end of the red spectrum. This annoys me to no end, and I have told Phil directly that it is not an honest way of presenting coins, but the opinion seems to be it has always been that way, and we don't want to change it now. Sigh...