Modern Coins

[Zebo]

I'm not one for modern coins. I don't like colored coins, or oddly shaped ones. I like classic designs. I bought one once because the mint used a new technology that I wanted to see in hand. I saw it and I sold it. I even made a few bucks. It seems as if Most of the forum members do not care for NCLT coins for understandable reasons. I believe that you should collect what you like, however. So for you modern collectors, show us your favorite coin and why you decided to collect it? A little variety might be nice - we usually show off the old, now how about the new. If there is a new technology involved - please explain it to the rest of us.

[MorganMan]

Like you. I have not seen any moderns that come close to the older coins such as Morgans and Standing Liberty's.

 

I however, did succumb to these ladies! But, alas, the obverse's are copies of older coins anyway.

 

[Numismatic, A.A.S.]

I collect a mix of both, I really focus on the older coins for my long term and more expensive goals...vs. my modern speculation goals...bullion included in that category...I'll put some modern pics together and post back soon...

[Mohawk]

I cannot really pick a favorite coin.....all of my moderns are favorites of mine.  But I can talk about why I enjoy moderns.  First off, I enjoy the designs of many modern coins more so than the designs on older coins (the coins of the Ottoman Empire and older Canadian issues being exceptions to this general rule) and I enjoy being able to chase near perfection.  I actually find the designs of many older coins to be somewhat stuffy and stodgy.  For example, many people adore the Morgan Dollar's design.  They find it pleasing and emblematic of a romantic, earlier era.  However, I don't see the romance in either the design or the time it came from.  With all due respect to my fellow collectors, I find the Morgan Dollar and its time period to be somewhat stuffy and archaic.  I just can't connect to it or its time and place.  Secondly, I'm more interested in more modern history than older history.  I feel a connection to and fascination with the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and 1990's that is much stronger than how I feel about earlier times, with World War I being something of an exception as I do have an interest and World War II is probably my area of biggest disconnect because it was just so absolutely awful and horrific that I don't even like to think about it.  I collect coins for fun, and I don't want my hobby to drag me down with heavy, dark history that just makes me sad every time I look at it.  However, before that, the first part of the 20th century, the 19th century, the 18th century.....I just don't feel the draw that I do to the latter half of the 20th century. 

As weird as this may sound to many of you, I'm more fascinated by the 1960s Counterculture and Woodstock, the Cold War, the mall and video arcade era, the rise of 1970's glam rock and Slade and prog rock and Rush, disco and Studio 54, punk rock and CBGBs, Nirvana and the rise of grunge and Kiss taking their makeup off in the 1980's and putting it back on in the 1990's than I ever have been or ever will be by the periods of history before that.  In my professional life, I'm a modern world historian because that's what enthralls me, what I love.  My spring and fall jacket is a West German Border Guard Tunic reproduction of the design used from 1953 to 1982.  I read an article recently talking about the discovery of a nearly intact, preserved Time-Out Arcade during the demolition of a dead mall in Virginia. I was captivated by that the way some people are by the Roman Colosseum.  The history of the second half of the 20th century just feels alive to me in a way earlier times do not.  So, I collect coins from the times that I am enthralled with and enjoy.  It's basically that simple for me, really.  Much as the history of that time feels more alive to me, so do the coins.  I'm far more captivated by a nice cameo 1963 Canadian Proof Like Silver Dollar than I am by any Morgan or Peace Dollar.  It's not that the latter are bad coins, they certainly are not, but they aren't really alive to me.  They don't really speak to me.  They're simply relics, fossils from a time that will never come alive to me, from a world that would certainly be as alien to me, someone born in 1980, as a different planet would be.  But that 1963 silver dollar.....man, that is alive to me!  It's part of a world I was unable to be a part of, but one that I would have loved to experience, one that captivates me by its closeness in time, yet there's a distance there as well. Just enough of a distance for a real romance to develop....and it has for me. 

So, that's why I focus on modern coins.  There's a lot to it, but I just like the coins and the times they come from better, to put it as simply as possible.

[Numismatic, A.A.S.]

[Numismatic, A.A.S.]

1 hour ago, Mohawk said:

So, that's why I focus on modern coins.  There's a lot to it, but I just like the coins and the times they come from better, to put it as simply as possible.

Exactly, like when things were tough in 1986 or in 2008 and the U.S. Mint issues were expensive and money was tight...the date on the coins reminds me...took 10 years to get something at spot recently that was issued in 08-W...all I could think about was how tough the economy was on people, food, gas, bills at home, no one could really care about anything from the mint. Turned out to be like magic certain issues...

[AcesKings]

Bought from the Mint, and my first gold coin. 

[Matt_dac]

This coin was a gift from the misses on our anniversary (given to me while celebrating our anniversary in Paris) and it includes an image of the area where I proposed to her (Place du Trocadero right in front of the Palais du Chaillot).  She hit the ball out of the park with this gift!

[Zebo]

I forgot - I do have a few moderns that I like!

 

 

[jgenn]

I have a collection of coins featuring my sport.