Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) encampment medals . . . post them up!
ZoidMeister
Posts: 3,120 ✭✭✭✭✭
Folks,
I have seen very few Grand Army if the Republic medals in my travels. They are becoming yet another exonumia rabbit hole I find myself compelled to explore. Post yours up if you have one you can share.
I'll start with this one.
Z
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39th GAR Encampment medal
Busy chasing Carr's . . . . . woof!
Successful BST transactions with: Bullsitter, Downtown1974, P0CKETCHANGE, Twobitcollector, AKbeez, DCW, Illini420, ProofCollection, DCarr, Cazkaboom, RichieURich, LukeMarshall, carew4me, BustDMs, coinsarefun, PreTurb, felinfoal, jwitten, GoldenEgg, pruebas, lazybones, COCollector, CuKevin, MWallace, USMC_6115, NamVet69, zippcity, . . . . who'd I forget?
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Comments
Never knew they existed. That is an amazing piece of artwork!
BST: KindaNewish (3/21/21), WQuarterFreddie (3/30/21), Meltdown (4/6/21), DBSTrader2 (5/5/21) AKA- unclemonkey on Blow Out
That is the first one I have seen... Very nice - and thanks for the great pictures. Is there information available on the various pieces? I have not seen them discussed here before... at least I do not recall it. Cheers, RickO
I particularly like the engraved images at the top of the 1905 Pike's Peak encampment medal . . .
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This medal comes in at 70mm and tips the scales at 128.5g, so it is a monster. I know of one other, the Hibler-Kappen listed medal from 1921 (HK-849H?), but I was hoping to see other possible non-categoriezed strikes to search rabbit holes for . . . . .
Z
Busy chasing Carr's . . . . . woof!
Successful BST transactions with: Bullsitter, Downtown1974, P0CKETCHANGE, Twobitcollector, AKbeez, DCW, Illini420, ProofCollection, DCarr, Cazkaboom, RichieURich, LukeMarshall, carew4me, BustDMs, coinsarefun, PreTurb, felinfoal, jwitten, GoldenEgg, pruebas, lazybones, COCollector, CuKevin, MWallace, USMC_6115, NamVet69, zippcity, . . . . who'd I forget?
There are hundreds of GAR medals out there. Many are mid-quality engravings. They would make for a cool collection, if one was selective about condition.
The large majority of GAR medals are drops from hanging badges, both holed & suspended by a jump ring or suspended by a rim clasp. A number of the holed for suspension medals can also sometimes be found without holes as well. Most are for county, state and national conventions and often feature the department commander or less often a military officer from the war. There is a good color illustrated catalog of all the official GAR National Convention badges that was produced by OMSA (Orders & Medals). Few of the GAR medals and badges show battle scenes, etc. other than some generic large celluloid drops used by Whitehead & Hoag on their products.
The small gilt brass badges and similar pieces that picture cannon, soldiers, tents, etc. are mostly souvenirs made for purchased at the mentioned conventions -- there are hundreds if varieties of these.
The regimental reunion badges and medals that are similar in design more often show officers, battles scenes, battle gear, etc. but also more often they take the form of ribbons both with and without drops. Again, there are a myriad of these pieces from hundreds of regiments stretching over a period of 70+ years.
I have one ribbon and medal, and one political item that is GAR related.
Close-up
From Benjamin Harrison's 1888 presidential campaign. DeWitt / Sullivan number BH 1888-10
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With the sheet number of these as you report, I am amazed that I haven't seen more discussion of them on the coin and exonumia forums.
Even digging around fleaBay hasn't been very fruitful for me. Do you know if there has ever been a catalog or "clearinghouse" website for them?
Z
Busy chasing Carr's . . . . . woof!
Successful BST transactions with: Bullsitter, Downtown1974, P0CKETCHANGE, Twobitcollector, AKbeez, DCW, Illini420, ProofCollection, DCarr, Cazkaboom, RichieURich, LukeMarshall, carew4me, BustDMs, coinsarefun, PreTurb, felinfoal, jwitten, GoldenEgg, pruebas, lazybones, COCollector, CuKevin, MWallace, USMC_6115, NamVet69, zippcity, . . . . who'd I forget?
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Now that's what I'm talking about!
Very cool pieces . . . . . .
Z
Busy chasing Carr's . . . . . woof!
Successful BST transactions with: Bullsitter, Downtown1974, P0CKETCHANGE, Twobitcollector, AKbeez, DCW, Illini420, ProofCollection, DCarr, Cazkaboom, RichieURich, LukeMarshall, carew4me, BustDMs, coinsarefun, PreTurb, felinfoal, jwitten, GoldenEgg, pruebas, lazybones, COCollector, CuKevin, MWallace, USMC_6115, NamVet69, zippcity, . . . . who'd I forget?
I do not know of any catalog beyond the one I mentioned above. There have bee several stories in TAMS on individual conventions & the exonumia related to each -- I recall that Dave Schenkman had a recent article in TAMS about one of the Washington D.C. conventions.
A lot of this material has gravitated to the Civil War and military collector sphere and can be found on related web sites. Below is a link to Civil War Badges owned by a long time friend who has supplied me with a number of scarce items in my areas of interest - just Enter, click Catalog and you'll find a bunch of GAR & UCV categories of items of all types (plus a ton of other fascinating militaria). civilwarbadges.com/
I believe the last national encampment of the G.A.R. was held in Indianapolis in 1949. Six veterans attended. Within a little more than a month the number of surviving veterans was down to four. The last died in 1956.
We had a speaker, who was also a local coin dealer, at The Collectors Club of Boston who attended that 1949 event. This was in the late 1980s. The Collectors' Club is a Boston area local club that still exists. He had photos of the veterans and brief stories about each of them. He was voted the award for best speech that year.