George Morgan's Lady Photography!
Zoins
Posts: 34,287 ✭✭✭✭✭
This is one of my favorite pickups of the year.
This is the only medal I've seen with this design. It's a generic medal for The Photographic Society of Philadelphia. In that time, it could be a membership medal. Award medals of the time are typically stamped with additional information on the awarad so this may be less likely.
Anyone run across others?
Was this struck by the US Mint?
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Though I do not collect medals, they do interest me and I look at a lot of them...even have a book/catalog somewhere. That is a very attractive medal and one I have not seen before. Cheers, RickO
That is one pretty medal sweet!!
Really great medal Zoins! The color is beautiful and so uniform and the design is stunning.
Wonderful pickup, @Zoins !
I own one and it is also bronze and unawarded. I had never seen another until this one showed up at at Stacks. I’ll have to get a photo next time I get to the SDB.
It certainly appears to be US Mint based on the fabric of the planchet (color, surface finish, quality, etc). I don’t think Julian lists this medal, but if I’m remembering correctly there are a few photographic society related pieces listed. I don’t remember!
Love the 4x5 sheet film view camera.
I photographed the natural landscape with a 4x5 for 40 years.
A VERY cool medal and I LOVE the chocolate color very much.
Way cool👍
I found photos of mine - sorry the color is a bit off.
These are great! Did you switch cameras?
Here's a photo of one from Ken Rockwell:
https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/tachihara.htm
That's awesome! It's great that another exists and that you are the one with it. That's in really nice condition as well.
The Photographic Society of Philadelphia still exists and was founded during the Civil War.
https://phillyphotosociety.com/
Here's their logo:
And you know what, I found some emails back from long ago when I was trying to find out more about this piece.
I first reached out to the Photographic Society of Philadelphia directly. They indicated that they didn’t have any medals from this long ago (they did have some from the 1970s or 80s though) and recommended that I reach out to the George Eastman Museum.
I did, and this is what I was told by their collection manager at the time:
“...Based on your description, the medal you reference in our collection, 1983.0007.0001, sounds to be the same style of medal or very similar. Unfortunately, I do not have any information about the medal, its purpose, or its history. The medal is part of the Louis Walton Sipley Collection. Sipley was a Philadelphia native and founder of the American Museum of Photography in Philadelphia...”
Their librarian suggested that there may be some additional information in their library, but I did not pursue any research there.
Years ago when I was a working professional nature photographer, The 4x5 was the only camera to use.
Today is so different. Everything is digital and it is way better than film.
I no longer shoot the 4x5 but instead use a very high-end digital camera.
Michael Fatali still shoots with a larger camera and his results are pretty impressive. I believe he uses 8x10 negatives. I'm an amateur so I'm digital all the way these days.
https://fatali.com/about-fatali/
Great info. So it seems there are at least 3 specimens. Do you know if the Shipley specimen was engraved?
That is one very cool truck.
It is a tuff life, it really is. Quite fun, but tuff.
I did that for forty years.
Coin dealering is sooo much easier.
Do not promote a photographer who's unethical behavior got him banned from a national Park!!!!!!!!!!
https://myplainview.com/news/article/Photographer-Sentenced-in-Arch-Fire-9017525.php
I was debating whether to post or not. What he did to the environment is cause for concern.
At the time it happened, I was in the "circle" of all the top professional nature photographers and none of us could believe what he did and he became a running joke.
I guess he did his time and his work is good.
There are so many others tho that have fantastic work.
All are way underpaid.
I used to visit the desert Southwest on a somewhat regular basis to hike and I met him when I visited his gallery. His photos are amazing but his methods concern me.
I don't recall how I first learned of him but his gallery right outside of Zion which I frequented helps.
Thanks everyone!
As a photographer, I'm a big fan of the subject and love the condition of the medal. I'm a big fan of the 1800s chocolate color as mentioned by @crazyhounddog and @Inspired70. I wish the Mint would go back to this type of medallic finish.
@Zoins Absolutely beautiful and thanks for posting!
My degree is in Commercial Photography, very early 90's in the final years of emulsion and large format studio photography!
I had somehow never seen one of these even though I've been coin collecting pretty seriously since the 70's.
So this is absolutely fantastic to see, genuinely!
Now I have a new thing to be on the lookout for woohoo!!!
Coins are Neato!
"If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone...somewhere...is making a penny." - Steven Wright
Wow! That's awesome that you have a degree in photography and and did large format studio photography.
I've never used a large or medium format camera but I did get to develop my own film in the dark room which was a lot of fun.
It's wonderful to see George Morgan's interpretation of photography back in the 1800s. Hope you find one!
Just ran across this thread again and realized I hadn't responded.
Thanks for sharing this great information. Sipley lived from April 10, 1897 to October 18, 1968. The society was formed in 1862, so there's still more research to be done.
Here are some links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Walton_Sipley
https://www.eastman.org/louis-walton-sipleyamerican-museum-photography-collection
It's amazing that we own the only two that are known. We should try to get it listed in Julian.
Nice!
I was a Robertson litho process camera operator for many years. There was a 4x5 camera in the photo studio that was used for magazine cover shots.