1843 indian medal help please?

partagas

Anyone know what these are? Sorry best photos I have, these aren't mine. Also any idea of values?

Walkerguy21D

I've seen ones with a similar design, hand shake with peace pipe/tomahawk, but they were struck in silver and older than 1843.
I also know that fakes abound, supposedly outnumbering the number of genuine indian peace medals.

seateddime

I have seen the reverse design many times. As I recall there was a recent Stacks Americana catalog that came out that had some of these in it that might be of some help.

partagas

I looked in the ford catalog I have and didn't see anything like it.

This is an 1843 Pierre Chouteau, Jr medal.

LoveMyLiberty

Look Here


The Chouteau family was a cut throat business group that controlled most of the fur
trade & equipment suppliers over a century , opening the American west during & after the
Lewis & Clark explorations. They were in direct competition with John Jacob Astor
company until joining them in 1822.

William Clark joined them in 1808 to form the St. Louis Missouri Fur Co. They had
exclusive rights to trade with the Indian tribes and most likely used "Peace Medals"
similar to your OP in that effort.

Don't know if your item is original, a later restrike, or fake, but it resembles the ones
L & Clark used when opening the west.
Interesting piece.

jonathanb

There was one on eBay in the last few weeks. I convinced myself that one was a fake/reproduction, but I wasn't entirely sure even so. The ANS has one in their catalog, but without pictures. At the very least you could compare your weight to theirs...

partagas

Thanks for the leads guys, anyone else?

Also when were these counterfited? Recently or was it in the past.