Any one collect Assay Medals? (Again)
njcoincrank
Posts: 1,066 ✭✭
Just curious if anyone else collected Assay Medals.
I find them quite historic and very interesting. Anyone else? Anyone? Bueller?
njcoincrank
I find them quite historic and very interesting. Anyone else? Anyone? Bueller?
njcoincrank
www.numismaticamericana.com
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Comments
Frank
Looking for 1967 PCGS/NGC slabbed coins.
<< <i>never heard of them; what are they? >>
As part of the Mint act of 1792 a commision was authorized that would meet annually to test selected samples of coinage from the previous year. Originally the members of this commission were all government people. In 1837 membership was opened up to private citizens as well and private citizen were named to the commission every year from at least 1874 to 1976. The private members being appointed by the President. The early assay commisions did not recieve medals but I believe some time around the beginning of the 20th century it be came customary to present each member of the commission a medal as a token of gratitude for their service. (Commission members were expected to pay all of their own expenses, membership on the commision was considere an honor, not a paid position.) The early medals were all different, each year having a new design, text indicating what it was and the year, I believe there was a blank area for the engraving of the members name. In the mid sixties the medal design became stagnant and unchanging with both the year and the name engraved on the edge of the medal. That is how it remained until at least 1977 when the President stopped naming private members to the commission. The commission lasted at least two more years with just the government employees and then it was abolished in 1980. I don't know if they produce medal those last two years. (Since there were no private members, many of the 31 1977 assay commission medals were distriuted to government employees who had nothing to do with the commission. this caused grumbling in the collector community, so the mint produced pewter copies for sale to the public. These can be told from the real commission medals because they don;t have the date or member names engraved on the edge.)
There are people who collect the assay commission medals but there aren't a lot of them out there on the market. Usually they aren't sold until the commision member sells off their collections or dies. They used to have an annual meeting of the "Old Time Assay Commission Society" at the fall ANA convention each year. Only former members of the ommission could be members, but I don't know if they still meet because the youngest members would be in their sixties now and most former members of the commision are now dead.
The last address I have for the Old time Assay Commission Socety is 3070 S Franklin Denver CO 80210
Very interesting. Thanks for the write-up.
cd
Looking for 1967 PCGS/NGC slabbed coins.