What is the reason for the deterioration of coin designs since 1970's-80's?

Recently I have been looking through the catalog and realized that the designs for commemorative (including non-circulating) coins have greatly deteriorated in 70's and 80's worldwide. Wast majority of commemorative coins from 60's and earlier have very pleasant designs, as well as many from 70's. However starting with 80's finding nice designs became increasingly difficult. This is especially true for 21st century coins. Maybe this is just my opinion, and other collectors don't agree with me? What do you think about this issue?

Some examples:

Argentina:

1. N#3262

N#14509

2. N#4522

N#312858

Australia:

1. N#5322

2. Basically any commemorative issued in the last 30 years

Brazil:

1. N#5383

N#7725

2. N#6385

N#36934

Canada:

1. N#306

N#454

2. Majority of commemoratives issued in the last 30 years

Egypt:

1. N#18002

N#10421

2. N#163047

N#381971

Portugal:

1. N#11158

N#13026

2. N#11697

N#11701

etc.

Define “nice design”

Besides it all being opinions, some newer commemorative coins probably look “bad” to people because they are of subjects the viewer does not care for. I looked at all the examples and found that, from an artistic point of view, some of the older ones were just as “ugly” in my opinion to the newer ones if I was to ignore the subject matter. It may also be the balance between then and now, there is ALOT more commemorative designs around now because there's alot more things people can be passionate about; movies, tv, animals and sports for example. With the change of the social zeitgeist and the fact that even non-coin-collectors might enjoy a coin themed around something they like, it's very easy to find ones you're not interested in. It might not be the case of “there's no good designs anymore” , there could be many out there, you just haven't seen them yet.  

Design is often depending on taste and there are many ugly old coins. But one thing I feel is that there doesn't seem to be a high die cutter art anymore. Especially when you have old and modern coins that have the same design (the modern one being an homage) the newer coins often look to me like they were cut with an etching laser and to me they look cheap. But this is more 19th century vs today for me.

One example would be Japan 1 yen vs 1000 yen:

N#129442 

N#144554 

Clearly a matter of opinion…

https://en.numista.com/forum/topic143894.html#p1147274 

Some points. These are my ideas and opinions, they do NOT express everyone's elses views and some people may like many of these points, they merely try to answer the question.

1. Mechanisation - modern manufacturing produces technically perfect but cold looking mass produced coins. Earlier commems have a more bespoke, precious, handmade, antique feel.

2. Popularity - Commemorative coins really took off in the later 60s as people had more money to spend on non essential things, plus many countries became independent, decimal or changed currencies and started the cult of commemorating things and anniversaries of major events or people. This started on stamps in the 30s, but only transferred to coins as they became  more token like and less precious metal.

It was refreshing in the 60s and 70s when a few more commems/NCLT came on the markets, but by the late 80s it was getting out of hand and now there is a Tsunami of NCLT from all the other world that is many times bigger than coins for actual circulation! With these factors designing quality gets spread very thin.

3. Change of metals - the 60s/70s was the era of many countries abandoning silver and gold as coining metals for everyday currency and the adoption of muck metals (Not 3rd world of course) and the rise of 2 tier commemorative coins.

A. The cheaper muck metal ones often sold just above face value or released in coinage (State Quarters, commem coins of Australia, British 50ps with Peter rabbit etc) and these are often poorly made and badly designed, they look cheap. 

B. The better tier was prestige commemoratives usually in gold, silver or other precious metals and these are lower minted, higher quality designs and production, but obscenely expensive.

Also designs don't look as good on cheaper metals like Steel, copper or bronze than it does on shimmering silver or golden gold.

3A. Prestige - Feeds into point 3, people feel a nice coin in a cheap metal like cupronickel, steel, aluminum, etc is less precious and beautiful than if it was silver or gold.

4. Taste changes, the past 60 years have seen style and design trends change quicker and some styles date and get perceived as ugly and tacky a couple of decades later (Like 1970s Graphic Art, Helvetica Bold).

5. Bubblegumming - The concept of issuing coins that have little reason or need, such as coins which have alphabets, celebrate dumb kids TV shows (Australia I am looking at you), coins with themes like Pirates, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Diana Princess of Wales, Disney etc and from countries that have nothing to do with them. Niue's disney Princesses and Dr Who coins, Fiji's bottlecap series etc. Cuba's “Piratas de Mondo” etc.

6. Poor taste/stupid topics - Coins that commemorate despots like Saddama Insane, Donald Trump, Dictators that are considered bad evil people, often put out by totalitarian and crazy countries like North Korea, Iraq, Russia, Liberia etc. Plus dumb topics like Olympics, sports teams relevant only to their country (European Soccer, Australian Thugby teams). Plus borderline fringe mints products like Disney Princesses from Niue.

7. Excessive issuing - Some countries like Australia issue thousands upon thousands of commemoratives every year, some are beautiful, but others are garbage and people can't keep up. Perth Mint issues over 300 lines of coins with gold, silver and platinum each year and the Royal Mint is also responsible with James Bond and Who coins in gold from 1 ounce up to like 7kgs of gold (WTF).

8. Gimmicks - Excessive commem coins issued in bizarre metals and colours, like Blue coloured coins, coins that smell, coins with plastic attachments for gems (Australia's Perth Mint again) and artificially coloured coins with reef scenes. Weird shaped coins that are in the shape of teardrops etc.

9. Prices - The cost of many commemoratives is way above the face value or metal content of a coin, like NZ selling 1 ounce silver commems for $199 + $20 Postage and Papackaging for a coin with $52 worth of silver. Many gold coins costing like double melt value etc and even muck metal ones like Bluey $1 coins (Same type and size as standard $1 coin) for like $15 and you can't play with it etc.

10. Fringe Mints - These are coins that are minted for mostly commem/NCLT reasons minted by mints that are not the National mint of a country like westminster mint in the UK (Overpriced gold and silver tatt). Pojoby Mint, Franklin mint etc - all mint overpriced tatt that is fringe to main coins and often overpriced and no secondary market. These coins may play on sympathy and cliche themes like WW2 etc. Design quality is worse, as top rate designers often work for official national mints rather than fringe ones.

11. Selling ethics - Many commems are sold fairly, but a lot are promoted in deceptive infomercials, pamphlets in papers and magazines and used as grannybait appealing to emotions (Remember the war with this plastic brass coin, this worn nickel is from the year of the Titanic). I mean a brochure from Bradford exchange showing a badly designed WW2 based crown from Trsitan Da Cunha, its base metal and gold plated with the word “Gold” in gold lettering with airbrushed letters and glinting stars in disco style presentation and the coin worth 25p and costing under £1 to make is $39 +$10 Postage and handling and subsequent coins at $99 plus shippage and handlage (Full refunds except Postage and Papackaging) are true scams.

Same with outright scams like the 9/11 tower coin that was promoted as Gold from the cook Islands (In fact made by a fringe mint in America) was promoted as a rare gold coin, in fact they minted 10 kabillion and it was like 0.0023% gold. Also coins that are sold as nickel silver and German silver (Which are muck metals). Add to it, they are poorly designed.

So there is my 2 cents.
 

One of the reasons could be a matter of buyer psychology. Products which are more expensive and less affordable look more appealing.

Ma9nWaRr10

Brazil:

1. N#5383

N#7725

2. N#6385

N#36934

 

I agree with previous comments stating that it's a matter of subjective taste. Of course, there are more commemorative coins being release now, so it's hard to keep the quality consistent, but I'm not so sure there's, in absolute numbers, less good designs now than back then.

Let me present my opinions of these four designs from Brazil (that'll refer, respectively, as 1a, 1b, 2a, and 2b):

The most redeeming quality of 1a is its obverse, that's not original, but reproduced from previous standard circulating coins (example). The obverse is still a favorite, and often used in trial strikes to this day (BTW I didn't find it in Numista catalogue). The reverse is a generic FAO design, nothing special.

Between design 1b and 2a, that both present portraits, I prefer 2a. The 1972 obverse (1b) is a much worse version of an 1922 obverse, and the reverse is bland at best.

I may be biased towards 2a, that's likely my first collected coin ever, but I truly like the obverse, that includes a benign portrait of Kubitschek (he was slightly uglier in real life), the iconic curves of the Palácio da Alvorada inaugurated by him, and typographic motifs from the 1 real banknote. The reverse is copied from standard circulating coins, and considered an improvement over previous generation.

Design 2b is more controversial. The reverse is copied from a circulating coin (that became a collectors' favorite due to its scarcity), bland, while the obverse is a reinterpretation of 2016 Olympics logo (inspired by Sugarloaf and Urca hills) combining iconic features of both London and Rio (I couldn't find if the design was originally commissioned by the Brazilian mint or the Rio 2016 branding agency). It may be too abstract to someone's taste, but it's clearly not under-designed.

As far as Brazilian commemorative designs are concerned, I consider the all-time low in the 1980s until mid-1990s (coinciding with super-inflation years), with designs slightly improving since then.

It’s the relief.
 

Coins today are minted in very low relief, perhaps to extend the life of the die.

Coins are metal of metals such as steel that are much more difficult to strike.

Mints used to create gold and silver coins that were technically difficult to fake.  That established a “look” that nickel and bronze coins were supposed to look like.

I recently purchased a 1999 Pakistan 1 Rupee from a junk box.  I guessed it was from the 1950s until I saw the date.  It is a low value bronze coin, not engraved with the best skill but at least engraved.