Factual errors and physical impossibilities

[<k>]

Factual errors and physical impossibilities.

By these, I do NOT mean simple errors, where there has been a spelling mistake, or a "B" looks like a "P", or a bison appears to have only three legs because of a faulty die. We already have a topic for those errors: Variations, errors, mints and other differences

No, I refer to cases where the design has conceptual errors, because the artist did not study the subject properly. Or perhaps a commemorative coin refers to the wrong person, or gets his name or his birth year wrong. Do you know of any such examples? If so, please post them.

[<k>]

The reverse design of the standard UK circulation two pound coin represents technology through the ages. The central area symbolises the Iron Age and features decorative whorls that are familiar from ancient Celtic Art. Moving outwards from the centre, the second ring, with its series of cogs and wheels, represents the Industrial Revolution, which is said to have started in Britain. The third ring depicts the silicon chip, that symbol of the computer age and the technological revolution. Finally, at the edge of the coin, we see a symbolic representation of the Internet.

The design of this coin infamously contains an error: there are 19 gears in the cogwheel. An odd number of gears would not turn; only an even number of gears would work.

[translateltd]

How about the tortoise shinning up a palm tree on the "Crookston Dollar" of Mary and Lord Darnley?  He's been a bit flattened on this example, but is there beneath the wear ...

[augsburger]

Now, I know of one that you'd probably never guess, unless you actually knew the designer. I was in the room when he informed the director of the mint that the coin was wrong, the director was a little taken aback, but nothing has ever been heard of it really outside.

Olympic 50p for table tennis.



You might think there is nothing wrong with this design.

In fact it is merely the same design that the designer sent in himself.

Only with one small problem.

And the reason nobody notices this problem is....

...because the image should have the RIGHT hand at the bottom on the left side, and not a left hand on the right. They turned the design around at some point during the process. So the designer's hands are wrong.

[<k>]

Wel, it's possible for a pingpong player to be left-handed. But are you saying that if he batted with his left hand in THAT position, then he would bat the ball towards HIMSELF? 

[chrisild]

Here is the city hall in Danzig (Gdańsk) on a coin from 1935. Note how the flag at the top flows in a different direction than the ones further below. The artist Erich Volmar later said that he did that on purpose, to show that (in a political sense) the wind blows differently at the top ...

Christian

[FosseWay]

I think the Italian 1000 lire with the bungled national borders belongs here:

[Prosit]

What coins is it that has the dancing elephants....I think them standing like that looks impossible.  Maybe not.
Dale

[<k>]

The penny of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. 

Heraldic animals are allowed a bit of artistic license, though.

[Prosit]

Ships do not ride on top of the waves.
Dale

[SquareEarth]

It is impossible for Qin Shihuangdi to pose in front of this section of the Great Wall, which was built during Ming Dynasty and has been hurt by unprofessional renovations.



Qin Dynasty Great Wall looks more like this due to millennia of wear and tear.

[SquareEarth]

The Korean 5 Won circulating coin depicts Admiral Yi Shun Shin's Turtle ships.

But although it's not the designers' fault, the depiction they selected was wrong.
It was based on an late 18th century painting, depicting the ship as iron-plated, 200 years after the battles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Ship#Decking

For instance, when Korea was invaded by the French Navy, the government ordered an ironclad ship be built "like the turtle ship".However, despite all efforts the design failed to float. Turnbull believes that the 19th century experience should not rule out a "limited amount of armor plating in 1592".

[canadacoin]

The design of this coin infamously contains an error: there are 19 gears in the cogwheel. An odd number of gears would not turn; only an even number of gears would work.

Actually when there is an odd number of meshed gears, the last gear will always turn in the same direction as the first gear, not sure if this represents a factual errors. Often an odd number of gears is designed to modify number of rotations per unit of measure (for example bicycle)

[Prosit]

I didn't study the design but simply counting the number of gears is not always indicitative of weather a machine will turn or not as there can be carrier gears that support the motion and don't change the direction of movement.  If I trace this one it looks like it can't work.

Dale

[canadacoin]

After Jordan became an independent kingdom on 25 May 1946, the idea of issuing a national currency arose and the Jordan Currency Board was formed, which became the sole authority entitled to issue Jordanian currency in the kingdom. The London-based entity consisted of a president and four members. First "Jordanian" coins were introduced in 1949 in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 fils. The first issue of 1 fils were mistakenly minted with the denomination given as "1 fil". This mistake occurred because coins were designed and minted by Royal Mint in Britain and spelling with "s" at the end was thought to be the correct one for the coin because plural in English uses "s" at the end of the word."fils" is indeed correct spelling in Arabic for this singular coin denomination. Later in 1949 when the first batch of coins was issued, denomination "fil" was corrected to "fils"