Have you guys seen the new Washington quarter? I'm sure you have, as most of you are in the US. I haven't been back for awhile so these things pass me by. I only knew there was a new design because I saw a post on Reddit about it. Here it is:

image from Reddit and probably from the US Mint's website.

Now I don't know about you, but this strikes me as pretty ugly. The sour face on Washington is fine. Later in life when he was in constant pain from his horror dentures, he reportedly wasn't in the best of moods and rarely smiled or spoke, so that expression fits well enough. But what's with the hair? It looks like some kind of monster is emerging from above his ear — one leg above the ear, the other leg the sideburn, and the mouth towards his forehead. And that pony tail looks like... I'm not sure what. Not hair. A tree limb or a piece of poop or something.

The "In God We Trust" doesn't need to be here either. It's scrunched in as is, in a font that is too thin. Ugly font anyway, but being so thin will not wear well; as the coin ages in peoples' pockets, those words are going to wear right off.

George's head is also too big. It should be shrunk down to leave some white space between it and the words "Liberty". I think his neck looks a bit odd too, as if he were a bodybuilder on steroids.

All around, ugh. While not hideous, it's not good. I can't believe such an ugly sculpture would make it's way to a chosen design of a coin. But generally par the course for US coinage.

Here's another photo I found on the US mint website:

The original is much better, IMO.

Looking at this coin got be thinking about how we really need to be careful about decisions, because what may be a trivial decision to us may be codified and treated much stronger by our descendants.

Take that "In God We Trust" line. It didn't appear on coins until the American Civil War. The Union started to put it on coins in an attempt to show that God was with them instead of with the dirty, evil, rebel scum in the Confederacy.

At the time they might have then intended to remove it after the war, but once things are done, undoing them is harder. The religious public embraced it to such a degree that removing it was impossible. When Teddy Roosevelt tried, he faced so much backlash he had to relent. It was eventually made the official motto of the US, replacing E pluribus unum ("Out of many, one").

So too with the dead presidents.

Washington opposed putting presidents on the money. He said it was too much like Europe putting kings on their money. If he was alive today, it's safe to say he would be horrified that all US money is covered with dead presidents. His wishes were respected until 1909 when Lincoln was put on the penny, then from there presidents gradually filled all the coins, putting poor Liberty out of a job.

Even if one wanted to remove the dead presidents from the coinage now, that's an uphill fight. The democrats would scream and fight if anyone tried to remove FDR from the dime or JFK from the half-dollar. Republicans would have a cow if it was even suggested Lincoln come off the penny. Well, unless it was agreed Reagan could replace him. The State of Virginia would throw a fit if it was suggested Jefferson had overstayed his welcome on the nickel. And just about everyone would look on in horror if it was hinted Washington should come off the quarter. Well, except him, if he were alive. Evidently they are ok with a small monster in his hair, though...

Another example of being careful with decisions. Putting Lincoln on the penny for the 100 year anniversary of his birth in 1909 might have seemed like a good way to honor the man, but it was never considered that once on, removing him would be much much harder.

Is there any hope for US coins? Probably not. The mint had the perfect chance in 1976 for the bicentennial to redo all the coins, but they punted on that. For the past several years they have given us some new designs, but they have just been new portraits of the same dead president. I'm of the mind that they will keep kicking the can down the road until the digital dollar becomes a thing and coins are all removed from circulation, or when inflation has rendered them all worthless and therefore no one will use them or care about them (we're almost to that point now).

But then again, who knows. If a coin lover were to actually make their way up ladder in the mint and gain some influence, we could see some positive changes. Stranger things have happened. There is a remote chance that because of inflation, we could see new coin values emerge and these could be given new designs. A $2 coin? A $2.50 coin? A $5 coin? $5 in 2023 only has the buying power 8 cents had in 1913, so it wouldn't exactly be the craziest thing to have a $5 coin. There was hope with the Sacagawea dollar. While not the best design, it wasn't too bad and it was definitely much better than another dead president.

The point remains, however, that we should be careful when we make decisions, because we never know how the next generation will run with those decisions, and some things that we only did haphazardly and didn't intend to be around forever might end up... being around forever.

What do you think? Am I wrong? Is it actually a good design??

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.