1797 - Capitulation of Mantua
elverno
Posts: 1,068 ✭
A beautiful medal in the Napoleonic series. The story is that Napoleon picked out the subjects of both obverse and reverse personally and it is one of the few associated with him that doesn't feature his mug! There were two varieties of this medal, and apparently several dies as I've seen minor differences in Virgil's hair. The varieties differ only in the engraver's signature; this is the Gatteaux F. vs. the Gatteaux Fecit variety.
There are a couple of planchet thickness differences as well as color. The thin planchet, reddish-yellow bronze, such as this one, are almost certainly struck in Milan. The Paris strikes had an artificial patina applied which gave it the distinctive chocolate bunny brown associated with French medals. They were also a clear 2mm thicker:
Sorry about the fuzziness, when I reduce the pics to get on the forum server I seem to lose some clarity. Course maybe that's just me...
There are a couple of planchet thickness differences as well as color. The thin planchet, reddish-yellow bronze, such as this one, are almost certainly struck in Milan. The Paris strikes had an artificial patina applied which gave it the distinctive chocolate bunny brown associated with French medals. They were also a clear 2mm thicker:
Sorry about the fuzziness, when I reduce the pics to get on the forum server I seem to lose some clarity. Course maybe that's just me...
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First time I've seen one of those. Thanks for posting it.
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