Is the Churchill crown the ugliest coin?

[Chris Perkins 228]

The Churchill Crown, you either hate it, or you hate it.

Winston may have been a very good leader during those dark war years, and ironically darkness was probably the best kind of light to view him in! It has to be said, he was no oil painting!

When he passed away in 1965 the Royal Mint produced a coin to honour him featuring his bust on the reverse. Many have said this was the ugliest coin ever produced.

It looks like this:

http://www.predecimal.com/forsale/crown1965.jpg

What do you think?

Just a bit of fun, if you say no, then please do provide details of your nominated ugliest coin.

Chris

www.predecimal.com

[Sylvester 15]

I do think that the Churchill Crown is ugly, but i do have another contender/s...

The last ornamental shield guineas of George III 1774-1786 with the obverse by Thomas Pingo, that obverse is naff! (So to speak),

The Spade reverse of 1787-1799 is also somewhat unappealing, very flat, very basic...very 'drawn with a pair of compasses and a ruler' (Coincraft's opinion of the coin), i agree.

Sylvester.

[Guest Dan]

Ugliest coin? IMO the euro coins.

[Chris Perkins 228]

Yes good point, they are pretty generic and un special, but I personally can't stand the EURO bank notes, they have no writing because it would have to be in 20 languages, and just a picture of a stupid building. No real details.

And no Queen! ;-)

And the EUR5.00 is too small.

Chris

[Sylvester 15]

That's why i hope we don't join the Euro, the decimal stuff is pretty insipid as it is, but it still changes design occasionally, be it either obverse or reverse. The Euro is far worse because you'd only be able to change the reverse as the obverse would have to be like every other Euro coin. Standardisation boring or what!

Sylvester.

I think it's time we had the Gothic Florin design ressurrected for the 10p coin. And for the 50p how about the Edward VII Florin reverse?

[Guest darkmast2]

some new shapes and colours for coins would be nice...how about some triangular coins or square coins

Maybe some nice dayglo Orange or Lime green coins is what's needed to spruce them up

[Chris Perkins 228]

You can get hologramatic coins and coloured coins, and there have been square coins. I think the cost of producing odd coins is too high and likely not to see minstream circulation.

Which is probably good because I believe coins should be coin coloured, that is metal colours like they always were.

Feel free to spray paint your change to create a colourful arrangement, in fact what a great 'modern art' idea. (copywritten from this point on). You read it here first!

Please post scans of artistically spray painted coins here!

Chris

www.predecimal.com

[Guest darkmast2]

The thing is if there were square coins would that cut down on waste metal ?

I can just imagine walking into a store with an orange coin...I wonder if they would accept it or just look at me in a funny sort of way before being booted out

[Sylvester 15]

They look at me funny when i walk into a store with a pre-1997 £2 coin, (or a Scottish £1 note) so yes they'll probably give you that glare...'you're joking aren't yer mate?' glare...as i always said there's alot in a glare!

Sylvester.

[Guest Dan]

I've had the same problem with the thick £2 coins. I had to exchange one in bank because no-one realised it was still legal tender! But I think it is time for a new "Great Recoinage". Inflation has made our coins trivial. Get rid of the penny and 2p; redesign the 5p and 10p as larger bronze coins, introduce a new, brass 50p based on the half-sovereign; keep the pound and £2 and strike the £5 coin as a proper currency piece with the same design each year. In that way, you won't end up with a pocketful of worthless change and put an end to all is £99.99 nonsense, which IMO is the only reason we still have 1p coins.

[Guest darkmast2]

What I've always wanted - a 99p coin

[Chris Perkins 228]

Well I certainly don't think some penny sweets are worth 5p each!

I don't think they will ever be able to control the 99.99 nonsense because making something just under a round figure has been a marketing trick for hundreds of years, and it would only revert to 99.95 if you had your way. And we'd end up with pockets full of copper 5p's (which would look familiar) instead!

I think although the penny is small denomination it still has justified worth. 100 make up a pound. If we went back to having 5p's (or shillings!) as the base unit of 1/20th of a pound we'd no longer have a decimal system would we, and that would hinder trade with foreign countries, and would be a nightmare to convert the electronic devices into counting 20 units in a pound, not 100.

The pound has to have a 1/100th part. I'm afraid as romantic as it may seem, we cannot go back to a pre decimal system.

Perhaps the answer would be to somehow make the pound worth more and therfore the penny too.

Chris

www.predecimal.com

[Sylvester 15]

I agree partially with Dan, i do think the penny is pretty worthless now, but like Chris i have my doubts about getting rid of it because by eliminating the 1p and the 2p coins it would devalue the currency further adding fuel to the inflation fire...how long would it be before the 20p becomes about as useful as the 5p is now and the 5p as the penny is now? My guess is not long, as prices would have to round up to the nearest 5p.

I think that a recoinage is needed though. I think the current coins need a redesign, made out of different metals etc so that they don't become confused with my master plan of recoinage. As follows...

Scrap the £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, and replace them with silver coins (i actually mean .925 silver coins here, not just silver coloured coins), where the face value is well above the inrinsic value of the coin. So a £5 coin could be sixpence sized (about 50p worth of silver?), a £10 coin 1/- sized, £20 coin 2/- sized and a £50 coin size of a crown.

This might help to ease inflation without having the ludicrous situation whereby every time the silver price goes up people take them all to the melting pot, as the face value of the coin is so far above the spot price.

Sylvester.

[Emperor Oli 0]

On the earlier colour "debate", I personally hate coloured coins. A bit of colour is ok, like the little flags coloured on the 2002 Commonwealth Games set, but colour all over is just grotesque. I think it detracts from the art of real sculptors who have an extremely good skill and impresses people with the colour alone.

[Sylvester 15]

Agreed.

Sylvester.

[Chris Perkins 228]

I second that

[Emperor Oli 0]

Chris, Sylvester, you may want to avert your eyes before you see this. The Churchill crown has made a comeback on Westminster Collections.........IN COLOUR!

[Chris Perkins 228]

Oh My God, that is awful, those bloody hyped up Westminster collection people, they're worse than Coincraft!

Great coin for British Neo Nazis though!

[Sylvester 15]

Oh My God, that is awful, those bloody hyped up Westminster collection people, they're worse than Coincraft!

Great coin for British Neo Nazis though!

Actually, erm i'm not sure how to say this but...

I think i prefer that to the normal variety, nice change there. (I hate coloured coins cos they destroy all the workmanship and subtle design of most coins, but with the normal Churcher you really have to ask, what design? well now it's got one...)

Erm can i borrow that image? Some people really need to see this!

[Chris Perkins 228]

Erm, well now the image is in my webspace, is it mine or Ollis still?

Chris

[Emperor Oli 0]

Erm, well now the image is in my webspace, is it mine or Ollis still?

Yar! It's mine and i'll kill anyone who even thinks about plundering it. Yo ho ho. hehe. No, I'll send it you if you want it but I'll need your email address...

[Chris Perkins 228]

Welcome to 2004 Olli! Sylvester can just right click it and copy it from above!

Chris

[Emperor Oli 0]

I'll have you know that Sylvester requested it via email!

[Chris Perkins 228]

Maybe he thought you had a bigger one...So to speak.

Chris

[Sylvester 15]

Maybe he thought you had a bigger one...So to speak.

Chris

Erm yeah...something like that but not quite how you are inferring Chris.