If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, surely there must be at least one coin in your collection that you look at and think; Man... That's an ugly coin!
For example, of the many beautiful portrayals of Princess Diana, there are some horrid sins of portraiture that reduce her to a caricature…
Of course, your stinker may be another's true love. 😆
Here is mine;
It is a 2021 homage to an ancient Greek coin, but for me, it is done just all wrong in too many ways to write down.
Mine is ugly because of condition. But I love it, because I found it when I hit it with a peg as I was putting up a tent on a camping trip. I dug it up, and it had my birth year on it.
Agree, children's art belongs on a fridge or classroom walls, not coins and stamps.
As for mine, take your pick from these beauties.
Dictators never look pretty
This fish is pretty ugly - Jaggerius megalippus?
Ugly for being a racist genocidal demon
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
N#24945 (And almost all other circulating coins issued in the past 40 years)
N#7335 (And the rest of coins from 80's and 90's. Specially from 90's)
I don't think I need to explain much here. Indian and Yugoslav coins are extremely boring. No design, no details, just the denomination and coat of arms/bank logo. In addition, Indian coins always have extremely bad quality.
And for chinese one: they messed up the redesign. The number on obverse looks out of place
Of course front facing portraits work sometimes, i agree that the finnish coin actually looks pretty alright. But most of the time they are just ugly or look really off-putting, like this one i also own N#12999 . There is just something wrong with the faces that makes you want to cringe a bit.
Agree, children's art belongs on a fridge or classroom walls, not coins and stamps.
As for mine, take your pick from these beauties.
Dictators never look pretty
This fish is pretty ugly - Jaggerius megalippus?
Ugly for being a racist genocidal demon
I love the history to be told through coins! It was pointed out to me on another thread, rightfully, that the "dictator" category needs to be approached tactfully, and it is one of the categories that I also want to develop.
Julius Nyerere was considered as the founding father of Tanzania, and was well loved by its people. He was instrumental in overthrowing the Ugandan cannibal Idi Amin, but remains controversial from a Western perspective for his anti colonial and socialist views.
Paul Kruger was a Boer leader best known for his role in the two Anglo Boer wars. This predates Apartheid in South Africa and he remains, with little local controversy, the head on modern South African bullion (Kruger Rands).
Leopold committed unspeakable atrocities in Belgium Congo, and his court directly took profit from it. If you want to read more about Africa, I recommend looking at the Mau Mau rebellion (Kenya), German South West Africa (Namibia) and the reporting of Emily Hobhouse on the the second Anglo Boer war (South Africa). Those may provide a few more heads for your ugly coin collection 😆
Most recently, you could follow the current efforts of the AU to get colonialism recognised as a crime against humanity alongside slavery, apartheid and genocide. That could really add a lot more heads to your section!
The fish may be a Coelacanth, once thought extinct until rediscovered in a fishing net off the coast of the Eastern Cape, where I am from.
And yet despite being dated 1957, its still a current design today in several Francophone African republiques.
This set is 2000s/2010s and the fish is on every coin, obv for the 3 lowest values and as the obv subject on the 2 higher values.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
Agree, children's art belongs on a fridge or classroom walls, not coins and stamps.
As for mine, take your pick from these beauties.
Dictators never look pretty
This fish is pretty ugly - Jaggerius megalippus?
The fish may be a Coelacanth, once thought extinct until rediscovered in a fishing net off the coast of the Eastern Cape, where I am from.
The fish is a Humphead wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus), an endangered reef fish found in most of the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. The can grow huge sizes (Over 1m) and are known as Varivoce to the Fijians and in the past also called a Maori wrasse, as some white people saw its generous facial features similar to Polynesians, yet the fish is often not found in NZ waters as its just too cold being a tropical reef fish and NZ has no reefs. Others say its because of its facial markings. Despite its size and scary appearance, its a very friendly and tame fish, which is easily hunted, the meat is very tasty and is protected due to overfishing.
Far from being an efficient producer, they only reach maturity at 6 years and live around 30 years.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, surely there must be at least one coin in your collection that you look at and think; Man... That's an ugly coin!
For example, of the many beautiful portrayals of Princess Diana, there are some horrid sins of portraiture that reduce her to a caricature…
Of course, your stinker may be another's true love. 😆
Here is mine;
It is a 2021 homage to an ancient Greek coin, but for me, it is done just all wrong in too many ways to write down.
Lets take a moment to respect the ancient Greek people who had to carve this design by hand, just to have a modern person make trashy looking copy of it.
