Why did the Medallic Art Company make many commemorative dies?

Longacre

I was reading the QDB commemorative book, and for several issues, he noted that the Medallic Art Company made the dies, rather than the mint. Does anyone know whether this was a common occurance? Why was this done by an outside company and not by the mint?

CaptHenway

<< <i>I was reading the QDB commemorative book, and for several issues, he noted that the Medallic Art Company made the dies, rather than the mint. Does anyone know whether this was a common occurance? Why was this done by an outside company and not by the mint? >>



Refresh our memories as to which commems were done at MedArtCo. Perhaps they were during the busy years, when the Mint had so many commems to do that they did not have sufficient capacity on the reducing lathe.

By the way, Medartco only did a master die or a master hub from the artist's model, with a galvano as an intermediate step. The working dies were hubbed at the Mint.

Tom D.

Mark

Longacre:

It may also be that during those times the laws that authorized various commemoratives gave the issuing group more authority than is currently the case. (Though, of course, as I recall the recent Dolly Madison commemorative wasn't designed by the mint instead being designed by Tiffany.) If that was the case, then perhaps the issuing group contracted with whomever they wanted to create the hub, which was then delivered to the mint?

Mark

TomB

I have several copies of letters from David M Bullowa that refer to the Medallic Art Company's role in early commemorative coinage. One letter from January 2, 1939 states that the MAC "had reduced the dies" of a specific commemorative and another letter of January 14, 1939 quotes a letter from the MAC to Bullowa that states "We have checked our files and find that we did not reduce the models for the York County coin. This was an error on the part of the girl who checked the lists. We regret this error occurred but feel confident that the balance of the information was correct". This is all I have on hand regarding MAC's role in early commemorative coinage. You may want to look for the Bullowa reference on early commems published in the late 1930s.

Conder101

Mark is probably onto the truth. Many of the early commems were not designed by mint engravers. Instead the local committee selected the artist. It is not too surprising that the mint would not want to create dies from these "outsiders". It would let them off the hook if something was wrong with the dies or design. And since the time period between when the legislation was passed and the coins were issued tended to be rather short the chance for problems was higher than normal. Since the laws called for coins the mint would have to do the striking, but let them get their master hub where ever they could.