oy.. i'll still have to get a roll , but damn, the cougar just kinda looks weird. the arms look off, the body looks off.. I was really excited about this one since the grizzly was such an awesome coin. Oh well. More for the dragons!
I like it cougars are fricken mean scary ass animals by far the scariest animal I've seen in real life. If you hear one of those growl it'll send shivers down my spine. My biggest fear while in the bush, bears shmears they're just like big dogs a cougar will eat you live but play with you first. I'm getting 10 at least I like it better than the wolf and probably better than the grizzly. I hope they do a moose next.
"The reverse design of 2012 "Cougar" silver bullion coin is the work of Senior Mint Engraver William Woodruff ..." He did the first two of the series as well. This one is hideous. But I am committed to completing the series.
Can't wait to add to my stack of Wolves and Grizzlies. Big question is where is silver heading ? Bit volatile at the moment and not a dip in sight.
It's heading in the opposite direction from fiat Who knows, a year from now $40 might look like a steal.
Agreed. Plus, look at the price of the wolf, going for mid $50's or sometimes higher. The grizzly will likely get up there too. In the long-run, sets of these will probably sell well and continue to command a nice premium. Plus, the price will likely always stay around what it is first released at at a minimum because most dealers and individuals wouldn't want to sell for less than they paid.
This is what happens when you replace all your artists with a computer. An artist would know that you can't get depth of field in a shallow relief, an artist would know that coming head on all the forshortening of the limbs would make it look chunky. An artist would know that a gaping maw would look flat and uninteresting. A technician scanning in a picture he found on Google Images would not know these things. An artist taking months to produce a final work of art makes a decision on each design element before deciding to go ahead or remove it. A technician can scan in hundreds of pictures and have them all made in that time, they know you are going to buy it no matter what it looks like. And finally, an artist will be familiar with all the great bas reliefs from around the world, the greeks, persians, the indians, basically anyone with stone to carve. There is a reason most animals and faces are depicted side on. hell, even cavemen knew to paint their murals with the animals side on. This has so much fail written all over it and it is heartbreaking to think that it will probably sell really well.
Interesting post. My impression of the coin is that the RC Mint failed to accurately produce what the artist had intended. Your saying there was no artist, just a computer generated image. Reminds me that this is the same mint that acknowledged the milk spotting issue on the maples without offering a solution. The same milk spotting has shown up on the Timber Wolf Coins and will probably show up on these as well. Your right they will sell well anyway and the mint knows this. Shame.
Just speculation on my part, the same thing happenned at one of the Australian mints, the computer software was heralded as if it was an improvement over talented artists! Some very ugly coins are being made and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, computers don't have eyes so there is your problem, either that or there is no one in charge of holding one up and criticaly assessing whether their five year old child could do better, the yardstick of any artistic endeavour!
I was shown an email from RCM and it said since these coins are not "collector coins" they didn't really care about the milk spots. This is what you get when you get unionized workers to do the job (at $40+ an hour) .
