Nowadays, coin designs are not taken very seriously, as they are usually flat, or reeded. The reason why? Probably because there is no need for such high technology counterfeiting devices like the 1700-1800 period. During those times, crude strikes existed and such edge "protection" was possibly needed as a counterfeit device.

I guess the reason why such technologies are not employed nowadays is because of the high running costs and it is reasonably hard to counterfeit recent design coins.

(although Japan's 500 yen (approximately 5 dollar) coin was counterfeited twice in the last 8 years or so )

So going back to the topic, do you know any interesting coin edge designs? I know that France used to be pretty big on this time and this was evident in their franc coins. I think 10 franc was one of them.

The most insane one that I know of is this one:

LOL WHAT COIN IS THIS?!?!?!

You can have a good laugh.

The modern British 2 pound coin has "Standing on the shoulders of giants" inscribed on the edge. It's an Issac Newton quote.
I think that's pretty neat.

The big silver coins that I won from Stu have writing on the side. If I remember correctly it is a restrike. But I cant remember anything else about it.

Stu?

-Bobby

Some links here for you to enjoy

Ripped out from Uzedenkov, Russian coins 1700-1917, this is a rather decent book to read.

P.S. each of them is about 250kb or so. Pretty big

http://img192.echo.cx/img192/6208/rusbookedge017ti.jpg
http://img45.echo.cx/img45/6803/rusbookedge029pd.jpg
http://img117.echo.cx/img117/5492/rusbookedge038hm.jpg
http://img27.echo.cx/img27/6986/rusbookedge042yc.jpg

I think I will remove these in a week's time...

Enjoy.

GX that one looks like a wine cork.

How do you see it as a wine cork? O_O

The thickness, texture and color reminds me of a wine cork. Then again maybe I just need a drink.

OH that massive copper ruble

You might be right

Is that what the 1 pound coins say? Is that in latin?

I have always liked the edge on german Hindenburg coinage.

Several middle-eastern countries large silver have edge inscriptions. Turkey comes to mind as well, but I can not remember the denomination, and as I am at work, cannot look it up.

I'm not sure what the one pound coins say, probably something about the queen but it is latin.

The two pound coins celebrate british industry thourgh the ages, hence the Newton quote

Just for information. The edge inscriptions on British pound coins are : -
DECUS ET TUTAMEN (English)
NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT (Scottish)
PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD (Welsh)

Romania 500 lei 1944

Dutch coins: pre euro 1 gulden, 2.5 gulden and 5 gulden and now the 2 euro coin carry the incuse edge inscription "GOD * ZIJ * MET * ONS *" which means "God be with us".


The 1966 Italy 500 lire coin that I posted in the "coins wth ships" thread in "World and Ancient" has raised edge lettering, It says "REPUBLICA ITALIANA *** 1966 ***"


All 2 euro coins have edge lettering in a reeded edge. Some countries only have 2's in it others have more text and only Germany and The Netherlnads have a real motto, if I remember correctly

The German €2 pieces have "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit", the first words of the national anthem, on the edge. The ones from Finland and Greece have the country names ...

The edge of the 2 cent coin is interesting too. While milled pieces have many vertical lines on the edge, this coin has one horizontal line. The 20 ct pieces have a "Spanish flower" shape. Several countries have polygonal coins, such as the UK 20p and 50p pieces which have seven "sides", or the Austrian €5 collector coins with nine sides.

Christian

I recall reading that another reason for reeding the edges (at one time) was to discourage shaving the coin - the idea being that removing a small amount of precious metal from a large number of coins would gain you a significant amount of precious metal.

Yeh, I agree that not enough edge attention is being paid by designers. I like the ornate edge on this common 5 rupee (India-Republic, KM#154.1)

Reeded or Milled edges were introduced at varying times in varying places. Most commonly in the 17th/18th centuries with the progression away from hammered coins and onto machine made coins with milled edges, hence the term milled coinage.

Other feature such as edge lettering were introduced for the same reason as the milling was introduced, to prevent people from clipping silver off of the coins and passing underweight coins on. Hence why British coins of this period are enscribed 'DECVS ET TVTAMEN' (An Ornament and Safeguard). Gold coins were similarly done.

Which brings to mind one story about eighteenth century England. Up until a certain point the edge milling on the gold guinea had been like most of the other denominations, set diagonally. However due to the prevalence of the guinea filers, who would file gold from the edges of the coin and then reingrave the reeding, something had to be done.

It was noted that certain issues were more suceptible than others to this filing. Issues where the legends were near to the edge generally escaped, but coins where there was a gap between the legend and the edge of the coin usually got filed down.

Thus by the mid-late 18th century the mint changed the obverse and reverse legends so that they were as close to the edge as possible and then the edge milling was altered from the diagonal style to a chevron style. The problem was greatly solved on the new coins.

So the edges of coins don't just make forgery more difficult, they also ensured that making a profit at the mint's expense was greatly reduced.

One interesting one is the Petition Crown of Charles II. Thomas Simon created it in an attempt to win the office of mintmaster. His pattern crown included a petition or plea asking the king to examine his crown and compare it to that of the other suplicants and if it was better made then to award him the office. Now I have just paraphased the petition, but on the edge of the coin it runs for some thirty words or so in two lines and in several different fonts. I couldn't find the exact wording of the petition but I did find a picture of it here.

http://www.coinvideos.org/Introduction/page-sv22w.html

OMG wow, that edge is fasinating.

That would be the Maria Theresa retrike, I believe.

From:

http://www.eurocollections.com/cointalk/mtt_history.php



That is also the coin I was going to mention.

It reads:

THOMAS SIMON . MOST HVMBLY . PRAYS . YOUR . MAJESTY TO . COMPARE . THIS . HIS . TRYALL . PIECE . WITH . THE . DVTCH . AND . IF . MORE (second line) TRVLY . DRAWN & EMBOSS'D . MORE . GRACE : FVLLY . ORDER'D . AND . MORE . ACCVRATELY . ENGRAVEN . TO . RELIEVE . HIM.

Mr Simon was to be disappointed, as John Roettier retained the post.

The Finnish 1 markka (1964 type) and 5 markkaa (1972 nad 1979 types) also had incuse edge inscriptions: Suomi Finland and Suomen Tasavalta respectively. I had always liked that feature and was disappointed when it was lost with the redesign in the early 1990's.




I found this very interesting myself. The first time I saw this in Germany I thought I had either an error or a coin that had two sides glued together!

Hehe, so much design effort for such a low value coin :-) Maybe that "line" was added to make it easier for blind people to recognize them ...

Another interesting edge design is that of the Swiss 5 fr coins. The pieces have an insciption (Dominus providebit) which used to be incuse until the late 1960s, then elevated until the mid-80s, then incuse again until 1993, and elevated again since then ...

Christian

There seems to be a resurgence of edge designs on a lot of commemoratives these days which I find interesting. I believe I just got one with the Suttner 10 Euro Christian sent me. I know you'll correct me if I'm wrong.

Not a correction but rather some additional info: The German 5 DM, 10 DM, 10 € commems all have "interesting" edge inscriptions in that the usual "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" (the first words of our national anthem) is replaced by some motto that relates to the occasion.

The Bavarian Forest coin issued earlier this year, for example, has the edge inscription "Grenzenlose Waldwildnis" (something like "Unbounded Forest Wilderness"). The Bertha von Suttner piece is interesting because it says "Peace" in three different languages: EIPHNH (Greek), PAX (Latin), FRIEDEN (German).

The most "different" edge inscription can unfortunately be found on a pretty dull coin. The €10 Documenta Kassel piece (2002), dedicated to an international contemporary art show, says Kunst (art) in German, English, Hindi, Maori, Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, Igbo and Chinese ...

Some weird inscriptions: In 2000 a 10 DM coin was issued that shows a simple (almost childish) drawing of "Man" between "Nature" and "Technology". Nothing about the occasion - until you look at the edge where you see that the coin was issued for the 2000 World Expo.

And the FIFA 2006 series of four €10 silver coins has the motto of next year's football world cup in Germany ("Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden"), plus all five mint marks, on the edges. So you cannot tell which piece was made where ... except ...

The text of the inscription includes the character E five times. In four of the five E's the horizontal "bars" have the same length; one E however has a shorter middle bar. And that indicates where the coin is from.

Christian

In the US we seem to have lost the art of edge lettering, though the 1992 Olympic Baseball commems had lettering and reeding on the edge. The Saint-Gaudens double eagles of course had a lettered edge stating "E Pluribus Unum" while the Saint-Gaudens eagles (aka Indian $10) had stars on the edge, 46 from 1907 to 1911 and 48 stars from 1912 to 1933. Bust halves had lettered edges too, stating the value, "50 cents or half a dollar."

The 2004 (and later) 5 Rand coin from South Africa:

Milled edge with raised lettering in groove

There is a groove around the edge of the coin with equal width of edge reeding to each side. Incuse lettering “SARB R5” appears ten times around the coin’s edge, in the otherwise plain groove.

The only other circulation coin types with lettering in a groove that come to mind are the Hong Kong 5 Dollars of 1980 to 1998 (KM-46, 56 and 65). On those coins the lettering in the groove is raised and the inscription is in both English and Chinese.

Hey, I never noticed that!! Thanks for the info, another coin for my type set and I happen to have it already

An ornament and a safeguard.



Noone provokes me with impunity.



True am I to my country.

With the change to the "bridge" themed £1 coins in 2004, the edge lettering has been replaced with various styles of ornamental.

The majority of all £2 and £5 coins of the UK also carry various edge descriptions. The standard bi-metallic £2 piece carries the phrase "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants", which was taken from a letter Isaac Newton wrote to a fellow scientist, with the full text being "If I have seen futher, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Basically, he was trying to explain that he never would have advanced sciences as far as he did if there were not others before him who had advanced it to the point it was.

Some of the more interesting quotes from the £2 are the 2003 DNA commem, which has it spelled out on the edge "deoxyribonucleic acid", the 2005 Guy Fawkes (GunPowder Plot) commem, with the edge "Remember Remember the Fifth of November", and the 2005 St. Pauls' Cathedral (WWII) issue, with the Churchill quote "In victory, magnamity, in peace, goodwill"

The Millenium (1999 & 2000) £5 issues carry the edge legend "What's Past is Prologue"

I posted this in my purchase section but thought that it might be relevant here.

Egypt 20 piastres 1939:



I also noticed that my Hong Kong dollar (1970) has this same edge.

Last year's €10 coin from Greece (Mount Olympus National Park) also has a peculiar edge design: It is indented, but instead of the seven notches that we know from the "Spanish flower" coins (e.g. the 20 cent pieces) it has 5 x 2 indentations.

Christian

I like that! Looks like pearls on a crown... what is it with me and the royalist imagery?