Unrealised Nigerian set by David Cornell (1975)

[chrisild]

Cool designs indeed - thank you for posting them! But apart from the issues that Afrasi mentioned (don't know about those), it may have been difficult to "transfer" the three-dimensional designs to coins ...

Christian

[<k>]

But apart from the issues that Afrasi mentioned (don't know about those), it may have been difficult to "transfer" the three-dimensional designs to coins ...

Christian

Oh, ye of little faith! You seen artwork before, and you've seen it successfully transferred to minted coins. Mr Cornell is not just an artist but a sculptor too, and he surely had the experience, even then, to carry his ideas into practice.

[chrisild]

Optimist is my middle name but yes, I am somewhat skeptical when it comes such designs on circulation coins. Simply because they tend to not have much relief. With collector coins you have more liberties ...

(Side note: Cornell's Diana portrait on that £5 coin is not all that three-dimensional either.)

Christian

[<k>]

Mr Cornell himself has commented that the relief on coins has got lower over the years, and particularly as coins have got smaller. The five pound coin is not small, but I still think the Diana portrait is superb and truly catches her.

[chrisild]

Oh, I do not blame him - a coin designer will usually have to live with the conditions and restrictions that a government/mint makes. And usually the limitations are more striking with circulation coins. For example, a few years ago the German government decided that, for collector coins (!) plaster models, the new-and-improved maximum relief would be a whopping 1.3 mm ... almost twice as much as before 2004.

And that does not even apply to "common" circulation coins. Now maybe Nigerian coins could have had a higher relief, I don't know. As I wrote, I really like Mr Cornell's designs for Nigeria - I just wonder whether, political issues aside, somebody would have flattened them at some point ...

Christian