Two Heraldic Silver Medals, 1971 Western Reserve and 1959 St. Lawrence Seaway

coinsarefun

I have wanted both for a long time but I had a strong desire to get the 1971 Western Reserve Numismatic Club Medal because
I was born and raised in Cleveland and left in 1978. My Dad was a general contractor back then and did a few remodeling projects for the owner of The Plain Dealer, who had a person write articles on coins. My Dad introduced me to both but neither he or I was even remotely interested in coins. And, my brother attended Case Western Reserve in the 70's. So I had a strong desire to get one of the clubs medals celebrating the 50 year anniversary. To me its like having a little piece of my years growing up in Cleveland. When I saw the only one graded by PCGS with a true view become available I jumped on it.
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The counter stuck coins being rarer do not interest me as the design on obverse and reverse rocks! And much better looking than the counter struck ones IMO.
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I probably should have posted these separate threads but, since they are part of my youth I thought they needed to be together.
I hope you will enjoy strolling down memory lane with me
Also notice, the similar reverse designs. I tell ya I just had to have them......it was kismet
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This is a link to Case Western Reserve about the history of WRNC
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The WESTERN RESERVE NUMISMATIC CLUB, an organization of coin collectors, was established 9 Nov. 1921 by 6 numismatists, meeting at Weber's Restaurant in downtown Cleveland. It was the third club ever to register with the American Numismatic Association. Moses Marcusson, the club's first president, served until 1924. He was succeeded by WALLACE CATHCART, another founder of the club; he served until 1927. Several prominent Clevelanders and noted numismatists belonged were members of the club, including Michael Kolman, Jr., founder of the Federal Coin Exchange, and Leon Lindheim, who wrote a column on coins for the PLAIN DEALER. The club hosted 4 American Numismatic Assn. national conventions in Cleveland, in 1924, 1934, 1954, and 1964. The 1954 meeting was the largest ever held up to that time. The club has met every year since its founding, and 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the organization. The club has been the parent organization of at least 2 other coin collecting clubs.
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1971 SC50C WESTERN RESERVE AG HERALDIC ART MEDAL PCGS MS68
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The Second Heraldic Silver Medal I wanted was the 1959 St. Lawrence Seaway .
This too is important to me growing up as my family used to take trips all over Michigan and UP, Niagara Falls and Ontario Canada.
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I was putting together all my family Super 8 Movie Reels...........who remembers these? and putting them on DVD's for my family several years ago and came upon several minutes that shows going through the a few of the canals, in particular the Welland Canal and Soo Locks. At first I couldn't remember where this was till several times watching it. Wow!....such a flood of beautiful memories.....even tho my older brother(went to Case Western Reserve) always walked 50' behind us as to act he wasn't with us! (independently wealthy I guess)
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.Anyways....I digress. Welland Canal link
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And, The Soo Locks Link
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1959 ST LAWRENCE SEAWAY (THIN) NGC MS67
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U1chicago

I like both of them too (and I noticed the similarities as well).
The connections between coins/tokens/medals and moments in our lives is another cool aspect of collecting.

JBK

Please edumacate me. Are these the private issues that were produced after the commen half dollar era ended?

They are great designs.

coinsarefun

@JBK said:
Please edumacate me. Are these the private issues that were produced after the commen half dollar era ended?

They are great designs.

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I’m sorry I did leave out that information. The Coin club was separate from the 60 issues(I think there were 60)
The St. Lawrence is a regular issue.
But, there is a thick and thin variety.

I have put together a fair amount of paperwork with the help of the seller. I’m going to scan it into a pdf file and ask the seller if I can make it available here. I would hope he says yes as more is understood the more these medals will be appreciated.

291fifth

Nice medals. I especially like the Western Reserve Numismatic Club medal. Being silver I wonder how many have survived to this day.

coinsarefun

@291fifth said:
Nice medals. I especially like the Western Reserve Numismatic Club medal. Being silver I wonder how many have survived to this day.

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The seller I purchased these from is the same guy that has had a few write ups about him. When his
father past way years back he was left with cleaning out a huge collection of the Medallic Art metal Co.
and Franklin mint stuff. He was in the process of melting the Franklin mint stuff and started looking
through the massive amount of MA medals he liked many of the designs so.......he decided to search around and found out they were actually something he should hold onto and not melt.

Since then he has made trips to gather information and has added a large amount on his own.
I was asking him about how many does he think got melted his reply was there are no records as he went to the company’s wife and daughter to obtain as much info they had. Not the best catalogs were kept. He assumes a good amount were melted.

Again, the seller sent me maybe 50-60 pages of info and I haven’t had time to go through it.
I’m hoping he will let me scan ad make pdf files so people can learn.

DrDarryl

@coinsarefun said:

Again, the seller sent me maybe 50-60 pages of info and I haven’t had time to go through it.
I’m hoping he will let me scan ad make pdf files so people can learn.

The Heraldic Art Medals were previously well documented at a website. However, the website has been offline since 2019.

But good news, one can access these offline sites via a web archive website. web.archive.org/ Just a note not all saved dates have archived information.

Just plug in the website http://www.heraldicartmedallions.com/. Happy harvesting (of information).

DrDarryl

Each Heraldic Art Medals has a flyer. Here is the Hawaii Statehood.

This medal series (in fact all SC50C) is ripe for research and there is a need for a collector catalog? Any authors available?

My contribution on the Hawaii Statehood medals at my ANA blog

https://money.org/collector/drdarryl/blog/hawaii-so-called-50c-low-volcano-vs-high-volcano-variety

DrDarryl

Found this under the Custom Medals heading.

ricko

Really nice medals Stef....and when you can get such pieces that are also part of your personal history, that makes them so much more significant. Cheers, RickO

JBK

@DrDarryl said:
Each Heraldic Art Medals has a flyer. Here is the Hawaii Statehood.

This medal series (in fact all SC50C) is ripe for research and there is a need for a collector catalog? Any authors available?

My contribution on the Hawaii Statehood medals at my ANA blog

https://money.org/collector/drdarryl/blog/hawaii-so-called-50c-low-volcano-vs-high-volcano-variety

Thx. That flyer explains the program and concept pretty nicely.

I was a bit surprised that they could make them the same size and weight as a US half dollar, but your write up mentions that the govt stepped in to require a change to that.

ZoidMeister

@coinsarefun said:
Wow @ZoidMeister you are become “The Collector” of all things Ron and Gallery Mint Museum!

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One can never have too many envelopes, right Steph?

@coinsarefun , this is what I was referring to in the OTHER thread . . . . . . .

. . . . . and then, there's the Hibler - Kapen obsession, the Papal Medal obsession, the European large bronze / silver medal obsession . . . . . . . .

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SaorAlba

Lovely medals and great write up.

keets

the reverse design is taken from the 1964 ANA 73rd Annual Convention Medals that were issued is sets, Silver and Bronze, encased in numbered Capital Plastic type holders. I have three, numbers 160, 161 and 259. it is odd that the Convention Chairman was Robert McNamara, owner of Heraldic Art located in Cleveland: he chose to have Medallic Art Company produce the 1964 Cleveland Convention Medal. later, in 1971, McNamara was quite naturally contacted by WRNC to help with their counterstamp and he simply created the obverse and re-used the already existing reverse for these medals which were struck in conjunction with the counterstamped Cleveland commems. I think I have 3-4 of those, some in custom made blue Capital Plastic holders. in a strange twist, Capital Plastics relocated some 10-15 years ago perhaps 20 miles due South of me.

WRNC is still going strong, one of the oldest continually meeting Coin Clubs in America. I think they meet the first Monday of each month around 7:30PM. I've tried to attend but the times and one hour plus distance has always been too much for me to manage. now, in full retirement, it's more of a possibility.

coinsarefun

@keets said:

WRNC is still going strong, one of the oldest continually meeting Coin Clubs in America. I think they meet the first Monday of each month around 7:30PM. I've tried to attend but the times and one hour plus distance has always been too much for me to manage. now, in full retirement, it's more of a possibility.

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I joined several months back and hoping to make it back to Cleveland this summer or next.
I want to attend a meeting.
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keets

maybe we can attend together, that would be a hoot!!!