Project Mercury Gold Coin/Medallion - Information
DuncanWylieWilson
Posts: 98 ✭✭
DuncanWylieWilson
Posts: 98 ✭✭
DuncanWylieWilson
Posts: 98 ✭✭
Comments
Fun stuff.
FWIW, the four listed Mercury astronauts are the subset of the Mercury 7 astronauts who orbited the Earth during Project Mercury. The launch vehicle was an Atlas rocket.
Here's a picture of a Mercury/Atlas liftoff (specifically John Glenn's) signed by all 4 astronauts who rode the Mercury/Atlas.
U.S. Type Set
My dad was on the Kearsarge CVS-33 and picked up two of the capsule (Schirra and Cooper). I have a pic of him standing next to on if the capsules and a neat commemorative Zippo
can't add on the information part
It does bother me that the hallmarks are:
1) not made into the item
2) crooked
They're evidently taken to be tested and stamped for their gold value and used as a small bullion store rather than their numismatic value. Hallmarks here are perfectly fine, albeit the photos aren't great.
That being said, in the event that they are fake hallmarks, is there anybody on here who would be able to shed some light on the hallmarks if I provided a couple of clear, up-close pictures of them?
Thank you.
I have taken a better photo of the hallmark and have now confirmed them to be absolutely fine. I will post the evidence shortly as I believe it may be of use to other members.
These 18K gold commemorative medallions/coins were produced at the Vienna Mint. As this was imported into the UK it had to be hallmarked as imported gold by law. The h letter mark indicates the year which is 1963. Thus, this is imported gold which was hallmarked in London in 1963.
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/medal-commemorative-project-mercury-vienna-mint/nasm_A19731520000
The link above is to a similar medal which was donated to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum by Thomas Becker in 1972.
good job!
Neat token.
A bit strange, though, that the Vienna Mint marked it "900" (90%) fine but the London assay marked it "750" fine (18K).
Somebody has to be wrong.
Thanks your your input. I don't believe the MAC (A) 900 mark is indicative of the purity of the gold, though I can easily see why this could cause confusion. I haven't determined what the MAC (A) 900 mark actually means, but I would like to find out. I trust the hallmarking on these tokens.
Cheers!
I should also highlight that these medallions were also minted in silver by the Austrian Federal Mint and they exhibit the same MAC (A) 900 mark as my gold ones: http://www.amuseum.org/jahf/exhibits/einstein/austria.html
I have two 18 K examples.
I have no experience with these and haven't seen any in person that I can recall. So I assume they are scarce.
Is it possible that the silver version was 900 (90%) fine ?
@dcarr, I have little experience of these myself, and what knowledge I do have is only what I have acquired from online searches. I do no that these are incredibly scarce, albeit not immensely valuable. Given that these contain 2.625 g of fine gold, I paid about 20% over spot for them at the time simply because I really liked them. I didn't buy them for their gold content, but simply because I find them very interesting and appealing to the eye.
Like you suggest, it is certainly plausible that the silver version was minted in 900 silver. It nevertheless remains deeply peculiar that MAC (A) 900 (whatever MAC (A) means) appears on the 18K gold versions too. Both of the gold versions I have were hallmarked in London in 1963. As you can see from the photos and information I pulled together pertaining to the hallmark(s), all matches up correctly - i.e. imported gold from Vienna and assayed and hallmarked by law in London in 1963.
Very interesting little coins/commemorative medallions indeed!