Given the size of Comitia Americana medals, can you infer that restrikes come exclusively from the U

Longacre

I was reading John Adams’ Comitia Americana book, which is excellent. In one part, he discusses the known sets of Comitia Americana medals. In discussing the “Colonial Williamsburg Set”, he notes the following:

“Missing are [the] Wayne [medal] (represented by a US Mint copy), [the] Morgan [medal] (represented by an obverse splasher from the original die), and [the] Stewart [medal] (represented by a cast of an electro).

The latter piece is of extreme interest in that the original model for the electro was struck from badly broken obverse dies. The logical inference is that, as in the case of [the] Greene [medal], the original dies were located and an effort to make restrikes was mounted. Only the US Mint was capable of such an effort; if the Greene experiment was repeated, we hope that restrikes and high quality electros will yet appear.”

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(1) Related to the comment that “only the US Mint was capable of such an effort”, is that because the Mint would have exclusive access to the dies, or is it because the mint was the only organization during that time that had the technology to make restrikes of such large medals?

(2) Are there any other documented instances when early medals were restruck outside of the mint, and whose provenance can be proven?

(3) Regarding electros, can we assume that that process was much simpler than a restrike, and therefore an electro is more likely to be made outside of the mint than a restrike?

ipmman

Later Paris Mint strikes struck after 1830 have privy marks or rather "punches" on the edge. Comitia Americana medals struck with privy marks at the Paris mint are considered to be restrikes. This designation has no regard for whether the medals were struck with original dies, or not. Medals without privy marks are considered to be originals.

For most medal collectors, "restrike" means struck later, but at the original mint.

This is the traditional viewpoint, and understanding this criteria in reading "Comitia Americana" is at times presumptive.

This designation also drives values in the marketplace.

I don't agree with it completely, and it is changing. I know for a fact that there are Comitia Americana medals with post-1880 cornucopia privy marks that were actually struck in the late 18th century. They may have been old remainders which were used to fill orders after adding privy marks 100 years after being struck.

How do I know this? Die state, die rust, and die progression.